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14 n e w h a v e n B I Z | M a r c h 2 0 2 0 | n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m T R E N D I N G Pipe Dreams By Michael C. Bingham M E E T T H E M A K E R A tiny Elm City company makes beautiful music working on rare, exquisite pipe organs O n an otherwise unremark- able side street on the Ham- den town line, a tiny cadre of master crasmen perform an outsized role rebuilding and restoring some of the largest, most complex and most revered musical instru- ments in the world. e company is the omp- son-Allen Co. Its business is rebuilding and restoring pipe organs in churches, concert halls and universities all over the world. e work is so specialized — some might say arcane — that only a handful of master crasmen are qualified to do it. In their spare time, the omp- son-Allen technicians also perform routine tuning and maintenance of pipe organs, many in churches throughout southern New England and New York, to pay the piper, so to speak. e company is owned by its two princi- pals: Nicholas omp- son-Allen and Joseph F. Dzeda. It was founded by the former's father, company namesake Aubrey ompson-Al- len (1907-1974) in 1952. Dzeda was the elder ompson-Allen's as- sistant for many before his retirement in 1973, when Dzeda and the founder's son decided to carry on the legacy. Over the half-century since, they have done just that. Today ompson-Allen employs seven crasmen, including the two principals. All except two have been with the company for more than two decades. e company was among the first in its tiny industry to embrace the concept of faithful restorations of high-quality pipe organs built in the first part of the 20th centu- ry. ompson-Allen is renowned for its sympathetic approach to restoration, the quality of its work, and for its ability to complete com- plex jobs on time — albeit within timeframes that can span years of painstaking work. All without an owner's manual to guide them. Take, for example, just one instrument: the famed Newberry Organ inside Yale's Woolsey Hall. When it was completed in 1929, the instrument was the largest ever to bear the nameplate of its maker, Boston's Skinner Organ Co. Its 12,617 pipes (think about it) can shake the legendary performance hall to its very foundation. Top-to- bottom restoration of the instru- ment — which receives heavy use in the form of concerts, recitals, public events and incalculable rehearsal hours — took six years. ompson-Allen specializes mainly in restorations and rebuilds of pipe organs made by Skinner and its successor company, Aeoli- an-Skinner, which between 1901 and its closing in 1972 produced some of the finest examples of their rare cra in North America. No two are identical and, to borrow from Will Rogers, they ain't mak- ing any more of them. Aeolian-Skinner organs are prized "for their distinctive 'American Classic' sound that is a combination of English, French and German organ influences," ex- plains R. Walden Moore, organist and choirmaster of New Haven's Trinity Church, which houses an Aeolian-Skinner dating from 1935. "e organs are noted for their clarity of sound and beauty of co- hesive organ pipes," he adds. Other well-known examples are found in Boston's Symphony Hall and St. omas Church in New York City. Pipe organs are complex systems of wind chests, pipes, action and console created with technology from another, bygone epoch of human imagination, resourceful- ness and endeavor. It is not for nothing that pipe organs are called "the king of instruments" — for their complexity as much as for the God-fearing sound they can emit. Unlike, say, piccolos, they are not exactly portable. So ompson-Allen goes to them. "We travel to wherever they are, remove them, bring them back [to New Haven], restore them and take them back again," ompson-Allen explains. "If they are unchanged from their original design, we strive to keep them that way. If they've been changed — especially if they've been changed poorly, which is oen the case, trying to 'modernize' an instrument that was artistically designed — then we la- bor to restore that [instrument] wth period or replica period pipes." "We have a reputation for being good at doing that," he adds. e work typically involves lengthy, complex labor at churches and performance spaces throughout North Amer- ica. Some of the work — including rebuilding actual pipes, which can be as long as 16 feet for the lowest notes emitted by the console's pedals — is performed at the company's decidedly unglamorous shop on Welton Street. Most recently the company completed work on a Skinner organ at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Worcester, Mass., a resto- ration that consumed about a year and cost some $400,000. Other recent projects near and far involved restoration of a 1955 Aeolian-Skinner instru- Though they're not exactly surgeons, Dzeda (left) and Thompson-Allen perform organ transplants of a sort at their Welton Street shop.

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