Trinity Cathedral Davenport gallery organ

Hellmuth Wolff (September 3, 1937 – November 20, 2013) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

organ builder Organ building is the profession of designing, building, restoring and maintaining pipe organs. The Organ builders , organ builder usually receives a commission to design an organ with a particular disposition of Organ stop, stops, Manual (mu ...

and the founder of the firm Wolff & Associés. Under his guidance the firm set new standards in Canada for historical organ building.

Life

Born in Zurich,

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, Wolff apprenticed to Metzler & Söhne in nearby Dietikon. He then worked for

Rieger Orgelbau Rieger Orgelbau is an Austrian firm of organ builders, known generally as Rieger. The firm was founded by Franz Rieger. From 1873 it was known as Rieger & Söhne, and from 1879 as Gebrüder Rieger, after his sons took over. At the end of World Wa ...

of Schwarzach, Vorarlberg, and Charles Fisk of Gloucester, Massachusetts, before emigrating to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in 1963 to be a designer in the new mechanical action department of

Casavant Frères Casavant Frères is a Canadian organ building company in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, which has been building pipe organs since 1879. As of 2014, the company has produced more than 3,900 organs. Company history Brothers Joseph-Claver (1855–1933 ...

of St-Hyacinthe, Quebec. He worked briefly with Karl Wilhelm before establishing his own firm in 1968 in

Laval, Quebec Laval (; ) is a city in Quebec, Canada. It is in the southwest of the province, north of Montreal. It is the largest suburb of Montreal, the third-largest city in the province after Montreal and Quebec City, and the thirteenth largest city in C ...

. Between 1968 and 2008, Wolff designed, built, and installed fifty instruments in churches, universities, concert halls, and homes across North America. Wolff's largest organ is of 61 stops, 85 ranks, which he installed in Christ Church Cathedral,

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. Th ...

in 2005.

References

External links

Hellmuth Wolff Organ Collection
a
Marvin Duchow Music Library

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

1937 births 2013 deaths People from Laval, Quebec Swiss pipe organ builders Canadian pipe organ builders People from Zürich Swiss emigrants to Canada {{canada-music-bio-stub