John Tuttle is a musician in a peculiar predicament; he needs a quarter of a million dollars just to get his instrument back into working order.
“People will ask me, ‘Can we use the organ,’ and I just say ‘Sure, but don’t count on it,'” he chuckled. Tuttle then recalled how the organ seems to have a mind of its own at times.
“The whole top octave was gone the other day. Prior to one convocation there was a single note that wouldn’t stop playing, and I had to have someone in to fix it at the last minute.”
The pipe organ is the fifth-largest in Toronto, originally built in 1911, five years after the building’s completion in 1906. Though still a majestic presence, its age is beginning to show. Tuttle has taken to checking the organ’s capabilities each day, then modifying what he will play based on which octaves and notes are or are not working.
The University of Toronto is currently looking to alumni to raise $500,000 for building refurbishments, and at least half of that sum is earmarked for the organ itself. It was the Alumni Association who originally contributed half of the money to build Convocation Hall; the government matched their $50,000 in 1904.
Tuttle, who first began playing the piano at age five, became intrigued by his church organ in his early teens. Someone was needed to play it at choir practices, and Tuttle took the position in exchange for organ lessons. Since earning a bachelor’s degree in organ performance, he has become the organist and choirmaster at St. Thomas’ Anglican Church, an adjunct associate professor of organ at the U of T Faculty of Music, and the official university organist in 1979. He has been playing at Convocation Hall since then.
“This organ has been given a tonal facelift, but the mechanical side has been neglected,” Tuttle explains. “There are major air leaks, [among] other problems.”
The organ has more than 4,000 pipes, so it is easy to see how the costs of repairs quickly add up. Tuttle has been performing recitals all across the continent for 26 years, even playing in London’s Westminster Abbey, but he still believes that this organ has the potential to be a world-class instrument if the funds can be raised to repair it.
“There comes a time in the organ’s life when you have to decide if the organ still meets the expectations of the organist,” said Robert Hillier, one of the many individuals responsible for repairing and refurbishing the organ over the years. He works for Alan T Jackson Co. Ltd., the company that has been in charge of calming the rebellious instrument since the 1960s. The last major series of repairs was done between 1979 and 1980.
“In the early eighties we replaced a lot of the pipe work and refreshed the sound,” Hillier said. “Then in the late eighties we upgraded the mechanics and the console was computerized.”
This computerization included the installation of a memory system which allows the organist to preset the stops, making the instrument much easier to navigate. $95,000 was spent on the 1979 upgrade, and another $200,000 was spent between that time period the mid 1990s. The $250,000 that it will cost to finish the rest of the work is only a quote that is still in discussion.
In any case, the repairs are not going to happen any time soon. There is no contract in place for the rest of the work, and Hillier claimed that it takes at least a year to order in the parts that will be necessary.
Tuttle, however, is still hopeful: “This being one of the principal universities in North America, it should have an organ that reflects that status.”
