Winston-Salem, NC
Partial Restoration of Schantz Op. 1913

Southside Baptist Church commissioned the Schantz Organ Co. to build a replacement for their ailing 1925 Austin organ. The new organ was completed in 1990 as op. 1913, and has twelve ranks and twenty registers. Designed along the typical neo-classical principles of the Orgelbewegung (organ reform movement), it is nonetheless a relatively flexible instrument which provides a robust support for congregational singing.

In the mid 2010s, however, due in part to the changing demographics of the Southside and Sunnyside districts, attendance dwindled to the point where necessary building upkeep was essentially impossible. By 2016, the church was only having services once a month; the building and organ mostly abandoned. A new, predominately hispanic congregation was founded in 2019, and purchased the building. Known then as Tabernáculo Bautista Agua de Vida, the name was changed in 2025 to Iglesia Bautista La Fe.

In 2020, the church expressed interest in bringing the pipe organ, now dormant for the better part of a decade, back to life. Undeterred by the shoestring budget of the fledgling congregation, we assisted the church in all necessary repairs and maintenance issues to bring the organ back to pristine condition. This required cleaning the pipework, regulating the Trumpet stop (most of which was not speaking before), repairing cracks in the large wooden bass pipes, repairing the blower, and wiring a MIDI out system into the console to prepare for potential future upgrades. The organ was fully playable by Easter of 2021, and has been used weekly since. It is the only pipe organ used regularly in a predominantly Spanish-language congregation in Winston-Salem.

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