An organ’s arrival turns a rebuild into a community moment
A new pipe organ arrived at the Church of the Epiphany on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on a warm August morning, delivered from Utah in a 53-foot-long truck. Church leaders said the arrival was marked with holy water, incense and slide whistles, and the priests blessed the instrument on the loading dock as about 30 parishioners fired confetti cannons.
After the truck was double-parked on the street, children, adults and elders in their 90s helped hoist pipes and boxes up flights of stairs to the church’s second-floor sanctuary. The largest spectacle was the organ console, described as weighing about 600 pounds, which church members and organ builders spent more than 30 minutes wrangling up an external staircase.
Denise Cruz, a vestry member who also works as a speech pathologist, said the organ’s arrival showed how the congregation could work together: “What has been the most beautiful part of this organ is the way it has brought our entire community together,” she told Religion News Service. “It was all hands on deck.”
A “rebirth” project shaped by fire, flooding and the pandemic
The Rev. Matthew Dayton-Welch said the instrument’s installation reflects more than a commitment to music quality. He described the new organ as part of the final phase of a multiyear effort that included relocating and rebuilding the Episcopal congregation, a project with a total cost of $70 million and an organ price of $2.5 million.
Church leaders tied the organ to a sequence of setbacks at the congregation’s new property. In 2018, space constraints led the nearly 200-year-old parish to consider moving from York Avenue. The congregation looked at the former Jan Hus Presbyterian Church nearby—one block west—that needed a remodel, but Dayton-Welch said crossing First Avenue was comparable to “crossing the Red Sea” for the church.
The parish’s plans also shifted after the Rev. Jennifer Anne Reddall, then rector, was elected bishop of Arizona, prompting an unexpected rector search. Then, a 2020 excavation uncovered that the property sat over a natural creek, forcing a redesigned building foundation because of flood risk. Christian Vanderbrouk, who has attended Epiphany for about a decade, said, “We had things flood in the basement of the church.”
Church members also recalled the neighborhood’s toll during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dayton-Welch described the period in broader terms, saying, “You had a flood, a fire and a plague.” He said the congregation had experienced an earlier building fire in 2021 when hot steel beam rafters did not cool as expected and the church briefly caught fire. Dayton-Welch arrived at the church in 2023, after the congregation had already moved to its current East 74th Street location.
How builders designed the sound—and the room
Church leaders said they contracted with Bigelow & Co. Organ Builders in 2020 in American Fork, Utah, to design the new organ. The report said Bigelow founder Michael Bigelow is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that the workshop is in an older LDS church building with tall ceilings that support organ assembly.
In April, Religion News Service visited the workshop while builders were completing the organ’s trackers, described as mechanical linkages that pull open valves to release air into the correct pipes. The article said the Epiphany instrument uses mechanical tracker action rather than electric-action pipe organs.
Early plans initially leaned toward a German flair, emphasizing volume and power, but the church sought a more expressive, versatile sound. Conner Kunz, a woodworker and member of the Bigelow team, said feedback led to changes “basically to better serve the Anglican style of liturgy.” He pointed to a Flute Celeste stop, which he said creates “ethereal, sort of wavy, shimmery effect” and is “less boisterous than our shrieky little harmonic pipes” that he described as typical of neo-Baroque styling.
The tonal director and vice president of Bigelow, David Chamberlin, oversaw voicing, which the report said involved blowing on each pipe to test sound quality. Chamberlin said: “We want to do something that will create, uplift, enrich, spiritually, the lives of our listeners.”
Preparing the new space for “the organ’s lungs”
Before the organ was set to arrive, the church building required preparations, including work by engineers and HVAC workers. Dayton-Welch said the team reset electrical lines, adjusted temperature and humidity, and excavated holes in a 140-year-old brick wall to create pathways for the air system “so the organ’s lungs can breathe.”
He also said the project worked differently because the church’s relocation shaped the instrument itself. “The room is part of the organ, the room is part of the instrument,” Dayton-Welch said.
Beyond Sunday: music, meals and outreach
Church leaders said the organ is intended not only for worship services—where they said 60 to 80 people attend each week—but also as a way to bring people into the church more broadly. They said the congregation already has relationships with members and newcomers, including through its Wednesday night dinner program that feeds housing-insecure neighbors, college students and others needing a meal.
Dayton-Welch said the church aims to respond to community needs by creating belonging, saying, “What we’re trying to do is meet the needs of our community by creating a place of belonging.” He added: “And our hope is that the music program facilitates that.”
The report also said Alex Nguyen, Epiphany’s director of music who began in September, plans to introduce the instrument using nontraditional events, including jazz ensembles or multimedia presentations. Nguyen said, “Of course we will have recitals, but I think we’d like to try some different things, unconventional pairings with the organ, doing things with the kids to help create that interest.”
Cruz said Epiphany had felt like home since she first came in 2023 after a hospitalization, and she compared the organ’s arrival to new beginnings. She said: “The organ has almost breathed a new sense of life or purpose, and we get to share now this musical ministry with our community.”
A final step on the Feast of Epiphany
The report said Epiphany’s congregation heard the organ during worship for the first time in the fall, though voicing was not yet complete. It said parishioners later described even the unfinished sound as moving.
On Tuesday, Jan. 6—when the church marks the Feast of Epiphany, commemorating the wise men’s visit to the infant Jesus—the report said the voicing process was nearing completion and the organ will be blessed by the bishop of New York.
Cruz said Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day, is “almost bigger than Christmas” for her Puerto Rican family. She said, “We’re all like little kids waiting to see how is it going to sound that day when it’s absolutely, fully complete.”
Christian Vanderbrouk, who served as junior warden when plans for the organ first began, said the organ has become a symbol of the church’s settled presence after repeated moves over nearly two centuries. He said, “It’s a signal to the parish and to our neighbors that after all that moving and construction, we’re fully invested, and we’re here to stay,” and added, “There’s a sense of permanence.”