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Virtual Pipe Organ

Sunday Liturgies

Music has a long tradition in the church and is particularly an important aspect of Anglican worship. Each Sunday, the Holy Eucharist is celebrated at 7:30am and 9:30am. At 6:00pm (5:00pm winter months) Evensong is sung on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month.

Our 7:30am Eucharist consists of four hymns and a sung congregational setting. The psalm of the day is occasionally sung to traditional Anglican chant.

The 9:30am Eucharist is said and the congregation sings four hymns.

At Evensong, we sing three hymns and the Psalm of the Day, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis are sung to traditional Anglican chant.

Our popular Messy Church liturgy uses a variety of musical resources to support the singing. Messy Church is on the third Sunday of each month at 3:00pm.

The Holy Trinity Band and Singers accompanies the singing at the 9:30am Eucharist on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month whilst our Virtual Pipe Organ (VPO) accompanies all other liturgies excluding Messy Church.

 

Our Organ

The renowned Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart once famously declared that the pipe organ was the undisputed “KING OF INSTRUMENTS”. It is difficult to disagree with him.

For a variety of reasons, it was not possible to equip the newly built Holy Trinity with a pipe organ although we did own a redundant instrument for that purpose for a short time.

On 8 December 2013, Bishop Richard Hurford, formerly Bishop of Bathurst, dedicated Holy Trinity’s new Virtual Pipe Organ (VPO) to the Glory of God and to the memory of the Late Fr Warren & Isobel Croft. The instrument was bespoke built by Virtual Pipe Organs Australia which is located on the Central Coast. Our Parish Organist, Chris Sillince, designed the instrument in conjunction with Ian Sell of VPOA.

Performers at the opening concert held on Saturday 7 December 2013 were Pastor de Lasala and Chris Sillince (Organ) and Gregory Van der Struik (Trombone).

The VPO contains recorded sound files of four stylistically very different organs being:

  1. English Cathedral Organ (Hereford Cathedral, UK);
  2. French Romantic Organ (Basilica of St Etienne, Caen, France);
  3. German Baroque Organ (Compilation instrument) and,
  4. American Theatre Organ (WurliTzer)

 

English Organ

The sound files for our English organ come from the Father Willis organ located in Hereford Cathedral, UK. The instrument was originally built in 1893. Our sound files are of the instrument as rebuilt by Harrison & Harrison in 1975.

Father Henry Willis is regarded as the finest organ builder England has ever produced.

To hear the stunning sounds of the Father Willis organ, click on the below links:

 

French Organ

The sound files for our French Romantic organ come from the Basilica of St Etienne in Caen, France. The organ was built by the celebrated French organ builder, Aristide Cavaille-Coll who has since become regarded as the greatest organ builder the world has ever known. Alexander Guilmant performed the opening recital on 3 March 1885 in Cavaille-Coll’s presence.

These sound files were slightly augmented by the addition of a handful of stops during the production of the software. These additions were based on existing Cavaille-Coll sounds. Two more stops, again based on Cavaille-Coll examples, were added to ensure all stop knobs on our console produced sounds.

To hear the incredible sounds of the Cavaille-Coll organ, please click on the below links:

 

Baroque Organ

Our Baroque organ is made from a compilation of sound files of organs built by the celebrated German organ builders, Arp Schnitger and Gottfried Silberman. Schnitger worked in the northern part of Germany whilst Silberman worked in the south. The sounds of these organs are as fresh and exciting today as they were when originally built. In other words, they are timeless.

To hear examples of the superb sounds of our Baroque organ, please click on the below links:

  • Sonata (Schnitzer)

 

Theatre Organ

The sound files for our theatre organ are from the blah blah organ which was built by the famous WurliTzer Brothers from Blah, USA. This instrument is one of the largest ever built by the WurliTzer company.

To hear the sounds of this instrument, please follow the below links: