Church of the Ascension

*The two organ consoles (left, electric-action; right, mechanical-action “tracker”) at the Church of Ascension*

For more than 60 years, Jim and Gretchen Manton found a spiritual home at the Church of the Ascension, located adjacent to their longtime residence—proximity by choice. The Mantons moved to 40 Fifth Avenue specifically to be close to their house of worship. The church was founded in 1827, and music, beauty and inclusion have long been part of its tradition. Originally very plain, the church had an interior restoration in the 1880s that was driven by its fourth rector, the Reverend E. Winchester Donald, friend to the many artists who made Greenwich Village their home. Believing that beauty lifted the human spirit and created a fitting setting for worship, he enlisted John LaFarge, Stanford White, Charles McKim and others to transform the space.

Similarly, church organists built a musical tradition that became integral to the church’s identity. In 1914, Jessie Craig Adam began serving as organist and choirmaster, building a nationally famous choir and a robust annual program of music presentation. It was a rare role for a woman at the time, so it may stand to reason that the Church of the Ascension was involved in the fight for suffrage and the rights of women. Subsequently Vernon de Tar brought Ascension’s music program even further, establishing a breadth and quality of musical tradition that has been continued and extended by Dennis Keene, the current organist and choirmaster. The church has two professional choruses in residence: the Choir of Church of the Ascension, which sings regularly during church services, and Voices of Ascension, a separately incorporated choir that puts on concerts and makes recordings.

Gretchen found a second home at the church, regularly stopping in to talk while Jim was working. Her love of music was profound, and when she died in 2003 the loss of her presence was deeply felt within the church community.

For some time, the church organ—so vital to the music program—had suffered from mechanical problems. Organs require regular maintenance and more significant work once a decade. Forty years had passed since the organ at Ascension had received this level of maintenance, and it had never been an instrument of highest quality. Church leadership knew it was time for a serious rebuild or replacement—but both were million-dollar undertakings. In 2005, Dennis Keene approached Jim Manton with an inquiry: Would he entertain a request to restore or rebuild the organ as a tribute to Gretchen? After Jim agreed to receive such a request, Keene researched the project thoroughly, then submitted a proposal. Not long after, Jim fell ill and, sadly, died at age 96.

One day, someone knocked on the church door. It was Hugh Morton, who had come to inform the church that the family had discovered the organ proposal on Jim’s desk. They wanted to move forward with the project to honor the Manton legacy. With this news, and a great deal of excitement, Dennis began the search for a builder capable of creating the ideal instrument for the expansive and diverse music program at the church. Organ design and capability typically follow distinct musical traditions, with some organs set up perfectly for playing Bach, for example, while others handle 19th-century music flawlessly. Since the music program at the Church of the Ascension is multifaceted, it needed an organ that worked well with choral music yet was equally facile with wide-ranging musical traditions.

Dennis spent six months searching for the right builder, traveling widely around the United States and then to Europe. During this fact-finding mission, the Church received a financial gift from the Foundation to defray his travel costs. In a characteristically practical move, the trustees did not want the church to bear the financial burden of musical research. Dennis listened to instruments in Brussels, Hanau (Germany) and Madrid, often joined in the hunt by friend and colleague concert organist Jon Gillock, who had been a frequent performer at the church. Like Dennis, Jon had befriended Gretchen through the years, having won her musical heart through his performance of French spiritual repertoire, a genre that became a favorite of hers, particularly the works of Olivier Messiaen.

In January 2007 Dennis and Jon visited Pascal Quoirin’s instrument in St.-R.my-de-Provence. After playing it for less than two minutes, they looked at each other and knew they had found their builder. Quoirin’s comprehensive knowledge of European organ-building traditions combined with practical experience restoring numerous important French organs—the one at Notre-Dame de Paris, for example—giving him special insight into how various organs were built. To this, he added his own style and ultimately created an Ascension organ with the ability to sound completely different, depending on what was required musically. Once the proper builder was identified and the project fully scoped, the $3 million price tag was higher than originally envisioned. The Foundation trustees appreciated the value and potential of this new organ—to the church, the musical community and the legacy of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton. The project advanced.

*Workers carry one of the massive wooden Bourdon pipes into the church.*

In France, a team of 12 built the organ at Quoirin’s workshop. The largest French organ built in 41 years, Quoirin had to excavate his shop to accommodate the piece’s scale. After building the organ and fully assembling it in France, it was dismantled, packed and shipped to New York. Installation took five months—three months for physical installation and two more to “voice” the organ, meaning to adjust the timbre of every pipe, one by one (there are 6,000), so that all pipes were balanced to the unique acoustics of the church space where it would be played.

All told, the project took three years, and by the time the organ was inaugurated in May 2011, the Manton Foundation had contributed nearly $5 million to help realize this large-scale undertaking. While much of that amount covered the organ itself, a portion defrayed costs for practical needs, such as replacement of a leaky church roof and worn pew kneelers. Once again, Foundation trustees understood that it made little sense to bring an instrument of superior quality into a compromised home. Indeed, along with the roof replacement, the church sanctuary was fully restored in order to serve as a comfortable, suitable setting for this extraordinary gift.