Experience

We are delighted to share the news that our Opus 2 has been commissioned by St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Shoreline, Washington. After a thorough process, the church’s organ committee elected to commission a fine electric action organ to complement the rich collection of mechanical action instruments in the greater Seattle area. Opus 2, of 16 stops and 18 ranks, will be the first organ built in our new shop in Needham, Massachusetts.

In early 2014, Nathan Davy, then-director of music, invited us to submit a proposal for a new pipe organ to replace a failing electronic instrument, installed in the 1980s. The church, built in 1967, was not designed with a pipe organ in mind; space would have to be created for one. The visual design, developed by Chris Ortloff, Jr., places the organ on the central axis of the church, supported on a new 40’-wide platform constructed across the front. Great care was taken in the design process to maintain focus of worship on the altar, and to complement, not compete with, the dramatic gold mosaic surrounding the crucifix.

Ortloff Organ Company was commissioned in early 2016 to build a three-manual console to function as the interim chancel instrument at New York's St. Thomas Church ahead of the installation of the new Dobson organ in 2017. Tasked with accompanying the revered Choir of Men and Boys, the instrument uses Hauptwerk software, and samples appropriate to the repertoire performed by the choir. Built of solid, quartersawn white oak, and walnut, stained and finished to match the chancel furniture of the church, the console was delivered in August, 2016.

To complement the theatre pipe organ already installed in his home, Karl Saunders commissioned a four-manual organ console controlling Hauptwerk software in 2014 to enable practice of classical organ literature on a variety of sampled pipe organs.

Restoration/Relocation of Skinner Opus 708 (3 manuals, 24 ranks, 1929)

Jonathan Ortloff was honored to be part of the team assembled by Jonathan Ambrosino to complete the restoration and relocation of Skinner Opus 708.

The Parish of All Saints, Ashmont, in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, is one of two Anglo-Catholic parishes in the city and worships in the first church building designed by Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue.

St. Mary of the Hills is a large and active Roman Catholic parish south of Boston, whose building, seating around 500, was dedicated in 1949. The Kilgen organ, original to the building, is installed in the rear gallery of the nave, and is of modest, yet ample size to accompany both choir and congregation. A second-hand Möller console was added to the organ in the chancel in the early 2000s.

Menauhant, in East Falmouth, Massachusetts on Cape Cod, originated as a Methodist Camp Meeting community in the nineteenth century, giving way to permanent structures around the turn of the last century. Still a thriving summer community, Menauhant has two primary gathering places for the residences of its approximately one hundred homes: the Menauhant Yacht Club, and Grace Chapel.

Wurlitzer Opus 970 was built in 1924 for the Colney Theatre in Philadelphia, and was subsequently owned by Leonard and Louise Johnson of Hingham, MA. In 2004 the Johnsons donated the organ to the Strand Theatre in Plattsburgh, NY. Though added to, the orignial core of the organ, including the electro-pneumatic relay and combination action, remained unaltered.