How did Williams High ever get a pipe organ in the first place? The same place the school’s auditorium came from. Mr. Walter M. Williams, upon learning the planned 2200 seat auditorium had to be downsized due to budget constraints, made it possible to build the second largest school auditorium on the east coast. In addition to that, he donated the money to purchase the new 4 manual, 63 rank Standaart pipe organ. More on the Standaart.
Standaart, originally a Dutch based organ builder, came to America in 1947 and established Standaart Organ Company in Suffolk Virginia. Shortly after that, Standaart acquired the Gottfried organ firm and hired the well known British theatre organist, Reginald Foort, as Vice-President of the company. Standaart Organ went into receivership and closed in 1953.
Below is a picture taken on the organ’s inauguration. Left to right is Mr. and Mrs. Williams. Seated is the world renowned classical organist, Virgil Fox. To his left, is Dr. Adrian Standaart, the organ’s builder.
In 1984 during the auditorium’s renovation, the Standaart’s Great chamber was razed to make way for a special needs access to the stage from the main floor. Due to neglect and non use, the organ was unplayable and without funds to make repairs and up grades, PTOS volunteers helped remove and preserve all of the organ that was possible to save. In its place, volunteers installed the organ you see today.
- Original WurliTzer Console
The current Williams High School Theatre Organ is a hybrid Instrument that has had quite a varied life. The original instrument started in the Strand Theater in Scranton, PA in 1916 as a 2/10 Kimball. The console was straight and it was not heavily unified. The pipework was voiced on 8″ of water and consisted of the following ranks. We do not have any photos of this console available.
In the 1920’s The organ was moved to The Binghamton Theatre in Binghamton, NY and a Clarinet was added. It remained in the Binghamton Theatre until the 1950’s when it was moved to a barn south of Binghamton. It was purchased in 1967 by Chet Rataski of Vestal, NY. The console, marimba action and chest work were heavily water damaged and were not repairable. The items that were salvaged were the pipe work, marimba bars, blower (3hp Kinetic) and the swell shades. The Diapason was huge so it was traded to a local organ technician for two Marr & Colton unit chests and an Austin Oboe Horn. Mr. Ed Link of Link Organ fame and a friend donated a 3 manual, single bolster Wurlitzer console, and the toy counter and chimes from the Binghamton Elks RJ8 WurliTzer. He also donated several Beeman unit chests and offsets from the Binghamton High Street Methodist Church. A Wurlitzer regulator and a rank of M&C Kinuras were swapped for some electronic organ parts and additional regulators and offsets were built.. A Deagan Chrysoglott with a missing action was purchased and an action was designed and built by Mr. Rataski. An M&C Xylophone and Glockenspiel were located and purchased to round out the tonal percussions. A relay had to be designed that could control the organ and take up as little space as possible. A hybrid relay was designed that used diodes instead of shorting bars and pneumatic switches similar to Link actions. The organ now had enough pieces to start construction but it abruptly ended when in 1970, Mr Rataski following the dictates of his IBM career, moved his family and the organ to Raleigh, NC. The organ at that time consisted of:
 On arriving in Raleigh the organ was set up in a 2 car garage. It first played in January 1971 as a 3/11 with electronic 16′ Bourdon, Diaphone Violone and Ophecleide .. In 1972 Rataski built a new home with a detached studio designed to fit the organ. Between 1972 and 1976, the electronic 16′ Bourdon and Diaphone were replaced by a Wurlitzer Bourdon and Diaphone, the Solo chests were replaced with Wurlitzer chests and a Wurlitzer Tibia and Tuba from a Scheme 35 organ was found in Goldsboro, NC. An M&C Trumpet was traded for the original Kimball Tuba and in 1978, the electronic 16′ Ophecleide was replaced with a WurliTzer Ophecleide purchased from PTOS. A Wurlitzer Orchestral Oboe was also purchased at the same time and installed in the Main. An Estey Quintadena was traded for some electronic gear from the 16′ pedals. It was revoiced on 8″ and installed in the main. In 1979, the last electronic 16′, the Violone was replaced by 12 16′ Gottrfried Violone pipes from the Williams High School Standaart organ. The console stop rail was expanded to its maximum. The couplers, tuned and untuned percusions were put on the back rail with the tremulants and 2nd touch tabs. In 1985, the organ was sold to Dr. Paul Abernethy of Burlington, NC. Dr. Abernethy donated the organ to PTOS and arranged its installation in Walter Williams High School’s auditorium. The specification for the organ at that time was:
 The organ was installed by volunteers in two of the four chambers that had originally housed a 4/63 Standaart concert organ. The auditorium seats 1200 and has very fine acoustical properties. There was room for a good deal of expansion but before that can happen, the console needed to be replaced with one large enough to control the planned expansion. PTOS purchased a three manual Barton console with attached WurliTzer relay in an effort to increase the organ’s capabilities. It was soon learned, however, that the amount of work and resources necessary to make this work was impractical. A double bolster 3 manual console shell was purchased from Arndt with financial help from the Burlington NC Kiwanis club. Chet Rataski and Al Bowers added the two half stop rails and raised the console top to accommodate them.  The console now holds 254 stop tabs. The original Wurlitzer console had a single rail and could not adequately support the 15 ranks that the organ contains The new console will also support the planned addition of 10 more ranks and work is in progress to prepare it for the task of controlling a 23 rank instrument. To help prepare for the expansion, and to allow the console to be stored when not in use. The hybrid relay of the organ has been replaced by a Uniflex 2000 Electronic Relay system. PTOS considers the organ as “A Work of Art in Progress”.  This picture was taken by Riesner. The consoles were purchased by Arndt when Riesner went out of business. The console top has a very distinctive shape and is similar to pictures of the George Wright organ. The console shell as received from Arndt. We removed the light shades giving the console a look like those used by WurliTzer on their earlier consoles. New half rails were laminated and matched to the stop rail. The extra half rail required raising the console top by 3-1/2 inches. The new half rails increased the stop rail capacity by 18 Stop Tabs (SAMs) on each side. The stop rails accommodates over 250 Stop Keys.  View of the back of Stop Rail showing extrusions used to mount SAMs. The extrusions are screwed to the stop rail every 3″ with flat head wood screws. Brass clips that have been drilled and tapped ride in the extrusion and the SAMs are screwed into the clips with 6-32 machine screws. This method makes it very easy to adjust the spacing of the SAMs.  The black bracket in the lower left of the picture is made of #10 steel and supports the stop rails in the front. The center of the stop rail is supported by a brace that runs across the width of the console. The brace is reinforced by two #10 steel fletch plates securely fastened to the brace. Wood front panels screw to the brackets with machine screws and metal wood inserts similar to those used on Wurlitzer chests.
 The finished console with a new top. The manuals used were from the original 3 manual WurliTzer console that came with the organ. The Barton Bench came from a console that was purchased from a University in Ohio along with a WurliTzer Relay that was attached to the organ for a time. And the Robert Morton Pedal Board came from the Carolina Theatre (now Stevens Center, School of the Arts) Winston-Salem, North Carolina. |