This organ is not one instrument but rather, nine different organs playable from one console with four keyboards and a pedalboard. The organist here plays with both hands and feet; the pedalboard is simply a keyboard for the bass pipes for the feet. Each group of pipes has a special name and a specific function. The main division or group of pipes is the Great organ; its sounds are firm and designed to lead congregational song. A flexible division is the Swell division which can be roaring loud or softened to gently accompany a choir or soloists. There are, as we said, nine divisions to this instrument: Great, Swell, Choir, Solo, Pedal, Echo Solo, Echo Choir, Echo Pedal and Corridor Diapason.

Six of the divisions are in cases with louvered openings that can be controlled by the organist. As they open and close, they increase or decrease the volume of each division. These divisions are called expressive.

There are four main families of tone in the instrument, namely, Flute, String, Reed and Diapason. Flute tone is as it sounds with a real Flute-like color to add to the ensemble. String sounds can also, as they sound, add an incisive string-like color to the organ's overall sound. Reed sound can come in many forms; Trumpet-like, Clarinet-like, Oboe-like and other colors that do not remind one of an orchestral sound. One of these, the Vox Humana, does not sound like the human voice as the name implies, but more like the bleating of a Billy Goat! There are reed sounds that are soft, medium and loud. The Diapason tone is the archetypical sound of a church organ with a combination of String and Flute tone.

This is one of the 10 largest organs in Metropolitan Chicago and is arguably the largest instrument in a room with the smallest proportional seating capacity. There are 76 ranks of pipes, 61 individual stops and a total of 4,732 pipes. A rank is a set of usually 61 or 73 pipes that are voiced to be identical in volume, sound quality and attack.

This parish has been actively engaged in continuing to maintain this organ. The main replaceable component of a pipe organ is leather. This is an electro-pneumatic instrument, meaning, that when a note is depressed on the keyboard an electric signal is sent to a magnet under the pipe. The magnet exhausts a little pillow of leather below the pipe causing air to enter the pipe and sound. The action is very, very fast indeed! These leather pillows, or pneumatics after 90 years have begun to disintegrate and need to be replaced or, as it is said, the organ needs to be re-leathered. Recently the Swell, Great, Choir and Choir Echo leathers have been replaced, and more needs to be done. This is the reason for our appeal at this point; it is now time to begin work on the Solo division. Thank you for reading this and for your generosity!

Bishop Anderson House is seeking volunteers for an outing on July 23rd. They need people who can push a wheelchair, as they will be taking residents of Warren Barr Pavilion to the Botanic Gardens. The plan is to leave Warren Barr at 10AM, returning around 2:30PM. For further details or to volunteer, please call Fred Barnett at 708-848-0142.

Dear Grace Church family,

As I start my time serving as the deacon at St. John's in Chicago, I wanted to send a final word of thanks to you for all the ways you've supported me and shaped me over the past few years. When I arrived as your seminary intern in 2011, I had never worked in church leadership before, had only preached a couple of times, as was still learning my way around the Episcopal Church. At Grace I found a welcoming and encouraging place to experience that holy mystery of what it means to be a church family, and to explore my own budding gifts for ministry in its many forms.

Over the years, you have taught me, nurtured me, learned with me, and been there for me. A number of you have given so generously of your time to discern with me, or to share with me the lessons of your own life's work or avocation. I've really come to admire-and have benefitted personally from-the rich diversity of voices and gifts and passions this community is gifted with. I pray that I can pay forward what you have given me in the ministry that lies ahead for me.

Finally, thank you for the tremendous blessings of my final days at Grace. The ordination service was a joyful, worshipful, and amazingly low-anxiety experience for me, and for the many visitors who came through Grace's doors for the first time that day. Anna's baptism the next day was a beautiful sacramental start to her life in the church that my family will treasure for years to come. I am so grateful for the hospitality that accompanied both services, and for the many hands and hard work and hours in the kitchen and sacristy that made it happen. And the ordination purse that you sent me off with was an exceedingly generous and humbling testimony to your confidence in my fitness for the challenging and beautiful work of ordained ministry; I will gratefully turn to that confidence when my own is faltering.

I look forward to seeing you again soon, but in the meantime, please know that you remain in my heart and prayers.

In peace and gratitude,

Nadia Stefko

Grace Episcopal Church is sponsoring the Eighth Season of Concerts@6:26 throughout the summer.  Each Thursday through August 20, we will sing Evensong beginning at 6:00 p.m., followed at precisely 6:26 p.m. with a thirty-minute recital to be offered in the Gothic-Revival splendor of Grace Episcopal Church.  There will be a freewill offering, half of which goes to our outreach programs. Click here for more information, including the full program.