Organ Tours

While I was teaching at Birmingham-Southern College, I regularly took students on “organ crawls” through nearby locations. Some of those were “nearby” as in downtown from our campus. Others were “nearby” as in neighboring states.

In 2000 and 2003 Judy and I were the leaders for group tours to France and Germany, separately, visiting beautiful cities, churches, and pipe organs.

Versailles: Chapel Organ

You’ll find a few photographs of the Organ Tour of France on these pages, but very few comments about the trip. I was able to resurrect those web pages from a very early attempt, but I haven’t run across my notes yet. Just as a teaser, the photograph on the left shows the gilded case of the organ in the chapel at the Palace of Versailles. This view is the only one most tourists get of the chapel and the organ. We got to see much more that that, and we even got to play the organ. You’ll see a lot more of that when you check out those pages after you follow the link at the beginning of this paragraph.

Leipzig: Thomaskirche

As I write this, it’s mid-October 2017, and I’ve just started resurrecting the web pages that describe our 2003 Study Tour of Historic Organs in Germany.

What a fun trip that turned out to be! Just visit those pages, read what’s there, and enjoy the photos.

All the text is up, including some notes written by participants. Next I’ll have to locate the original photographs and produce better scans. The thumbnail image of the church associated with Bach more than any other is just a symptom. These pages need better photographs. Technology has come a long was since 2003!

Until I do that, you’ll just have to be content to see teasers that say the photo can’t be located.

Jim