PIPE ORGANS IN WESTERN CANADA
Where copyright is concerned, permission has been granted to reproduce articles.
Although the bulk of the material is related to pipe organs, other personal correspondences are included as they serve to expand a sense of the qualities and gifts of the man who I was privileged to know as a father, friend, and mentor.
Several correspondents have generously donated to the project with their collections of letters that they received from my father over the years. Casavant Freres has also given permission to copy the letters that are in their files, and this portion of the project will be undertaken next year.
The work of transcription is time-consuming, and I gratefully acknowledge technical and historical assistance from: Douglas Adams of Victoria BC, D. Stuart Kennedy of Calgary Alberta, William Thurmeier of Golden Eagle Pipe Organ Company in Saskatoon Saskatchewan, Fr. Basil Foote OSB of Westminster Abbey, Mission BC, Dr. James Hartman of the University of Manitoba, and Stan Scheer of Casavant Freres Ltee, Ste Hyacinthe PQ. I also wish to thank all those who have encouraged me in this project.
This site has been developed to provoke interest and appreciation for the biography and life work of Stuart Anthony Kolbinson. I hope to find a publisher for the biography, and promote interest in the 4-manual 1907 Casavant Freres instrument that is still installed in the family home in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. I am also seeking assistance for the historical conservation, preservation and transfer of data from the reel-to-reel and cassette recordings to a more stable media.
I introduce my father and his letters in the way I discovered them.........beginning with two that piqued my curiosity, and led to this project. The first, written in 1992, is an inquiry, when he discovered that the first pipe organ he built was being rebuilt in the Abbey Church at St. Peter's Monastery in Muenster, Saskatchewan. The second is in reply to the monk who was co-ordinating the work. The third item is a summary written in story form, sometime in the 1970's (when Stuart bought his first word processor). And the fourth is a letter he wrote to Casavant Freres in 1988 detailing the work to date on Casavant Opus # 301.
Valla Eiriksson
2002
In the choir section of
Casavant Opus # 301 (696)
1919 - 2000
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January 5, 2005
Added book details and link.
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Excerpts from "My Father's Letters - Pipe Organs in Western Canada" Selected letters detailing the history of Casavant Opus 301 (696)
Soft cover, spiral-bound, 56 pages.
Contains a great deal of material not found on the website.
Published by Avanti Books, ISBN 0-9735767-0-7
In Canada: $7.95 + GST + shipping
In USA: $4.95 + shipping
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