Our Organ
Our church organ is dedicated to the glory of God, used as an instrument of worship and inspiration, and was provided entirely by the generous contributions of the congregation of First Baptist Church Garland. The Schantz Organ company of Orville, Ohio built and installed 33 ranks of pipes in our Sanctuary in 1979. A four manual console was provided, but the fourth manual was prepared for an antiphonaldivision to be installed later in the rear balcony. Dr. Albert Travis, Organ Professor at Southwestern Seminary and organist at Broadway Baptist in Fort Worth, Texas, played the dedicatory recital.
In 2012, the church signed a contract with Rodgers Organ Company of Hillsboro, Oregon to completely replace the Schantz console and add a large number of digital components to the existing pipework. A new five manual console was constructed at the Rodgers factory, shipped, and installed in October – November 2012. Choir, Great, Swell, Solo, Antiphonal, and Pedal divisions play through 80 speakers and pipes engulfing the Sanctuary in sound.
There are 161 drawknobs which control 486 organ voices. Every organ voice has at least one alternate voice easily accessed through the voice palette menu. There are also over 1100 midi voices which can be used for solos or added to any registration in any of the six divisions of the organ. Rodgers Opus 2876 is the last custom five manual console that Rodgers built, and is one of the largest pipe/digital combination organs built by that company. The organ utilizes the latest RSS technology to customize the acoustic sound space. Two computers with the computing capacity of 66 desktop computers, control this large
instrument.
The new organ was first used in worship on Nov. 25, 2012. Mr. Dan Miller played the dedicatory recitalon February 17, 2013. The organ is heard in worship services, Sunday mornings at 8:45 a.m. in our Traditional worship, 11:15 a.m. in our Blended worship, and our 6:00 p.m. evening worship. It is used to accompany choirs, congregation, orchestra, other instruments, and for solo and concert venues.