Evensong is pleased to announce the imminent release of the organs of Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Los Angeles. Immanuel Presbyterian is one of the great churches on Wilshire Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles, California. The main church seats over 2000 people. There are three organs on the campus. A 1929 4 manual EM Skinner (Op 676), a 1956 3 manual Schlicker (the first three manual Schlicker to be installed in Southern California), and a 2 manual 1977 Hradetzky tracker action instrument. A history of the church is available at https://immanuelpres.org/
Unfortunately, due to significant demographic changes since its heyday in the mid 20th Century, the instruments have fallen into disrepair, and the church is serving its community in ways that don’t involve these fine instruments. We are happy to be able to have preserved them using this platform. All three of these instruments are available as one set from Evensong.
Clarence Mader was the organist at Immanuel Presbyterian from 1929 through 1966. He presided over
the then brand new EM Skinner organ, and over the installation of the 1956 Schlicker in the Westminster chapel on the campus. The Schlicker was Clarence Mader’s primary teaching instrument. The Hradetzky organ was donated in memory of Clarence Mader in 1977. The Hradetzky instrument was one of three instruments of similar size made by Hradetzky at about the same time for installations in Southern California. The other two Hradetzky instruments are at UCLA and UC Irvine.
The Skinner is our first 6-channel set, and the sounds are very rich as a result – one may adjust the sliders of direct, ambient and remote to “dial in” your preferred sound. While the space does not have a cathedral reverb, the 6 channels do give a very good impression of the space, and help to capture the reverb of 2~3 seconds. The two chapel instruments are in very dry, small rooms, and so were only each sampled in a single perspective – they do respond very well to a little reverb added via the HW convolution reverb feature. We are releasing all 3 organs together as a package deal – a portion of the proceeds will go back to help the church. A special 2-week introductory price of $399 is available to those who are subscribed to our newsletter before the April 4 release date – subscribe here: http://eepurl.com/hioiaz After the introductory period, the price will rise to $429, and the order page will be made available to the general public.
