Concordia Lutheran College Chapel

Stephen Street, Toowoomba

Walter Emerson, Toowoomba, 1972
Additions 1975, 1979 Walter Emerson, Toowoomba
2 manuals, 21 speaking stops (12 ranks extended & mixture), electro-pneumatic action

Concordia Lutheran College Chapel, Toowoomba
[Photograph by Trevor Bunning (November 2011)]

Historical and Technical Documentation by Geoffrey Cox
© OHTA 2011, 2015 (last updated October 2015)

The Redlands Campus of Concordia Lutheran College in Toowoomba, built around the historic home 'Redlands' dating from 1889, originated as Concordia Memorial College, which was opened in 1946. This became one of three campuses of the newly named 'Concordia Lutheran College' in 2007, following a merger with Concordia Primary School, and Martin Luther Primary School. The spacious Middle and Senior School campus in Stephen Street includes the College Chapel.¹

The historic house 'Redlands' (1889) around which the
Redlands Campus of Concordia Lutheran College is built
[Photograph by Trevor Bunning (November 2011)]

The organ in the College Chapel was built in 1971-72 by Walter Emerson, an organist and amateur organ builder of Toowoomba. It was opened on 28 May 1972 with a recital by Walter Emerson, Walter Noller (then music teacher at the College), Freda Reuter (of St Peter's Lutheran College, Brisbane) and Neil McDermid (Lecturer at the then Darling Downs College of Advanced Education). This instrument was regarded by Emerson as his favourite amongst the organs he had built or rebuilt right up to the time of his death in 1986.²

The 1972 Emerson organ in
Concordia Lutheran College Chapel, Toowoomba
[Photograph by Howard Baker (1990s)]

The specification initially comprised five stops on the Great and five on the Swell, with a four-stop Pedal division derived by extension from the Bourdon 16ft rank,³ though the original proposal had been for a slightly larger specification, including a Mixture III on the Great and Salicional 8ft and Principal 4ft on the Swell.⁴ The tonal design followed the pattern evident in Emerson's organ built a few years earlier for the Baillie Henderson Hospital, with an emphasis on chorus design rather than on the multiplication of foundation stops. The metal pipework for the Concordia instrument was obtained from Aug. Laukhuff of Weikersheim, Germany, and the wooden pipes were made by Emerson in Toowoomba.

At the instigation of Keith Taylor (Music Master at the College), Emerson added the Trumpet unit along with the full-length zinc bass octave for the Great Principal 8ft in 1975, and the Apfel Regal unit in 1979. The pipework for these additions was again obtained from Aug. Laukhuff of Gemany.⁵ Refurbishment of the organ by Ian D. Brown & Associates of Ballina in 1999 included refelting and releathering as well as the rebuilding of the Trompette windchest to eliminate speech problems.⁶ General cleaning and further re-voicing were carried out in 2007.⁷ Access for tuning was improved in 2014 with the fitting of a new door in the rear of the swell box, and Peterson Pipe Valves were installed in the façade-pipe windchest to allow the pipes to speak promptly.⁸    

The console and view from the rear gallery
[Photographs by Trevor Bunning (November 2011)]

The specification is as follows:

Detached stop-key console
Balanced swell pedal
Electro-pneumatic action
Compass: 61/30.⁹

Console details
[Photographs by Trevor Bunning (November 2011)]

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1 Concordia Lutheran College, Toowoomba, Australia. http://www.concordia.qld.edu.au - accessed 13 August 2011.

2 Les Rub, 'The Organ, Concordia Memorial College,' The Organ Voice, vol. 24, no. 4 (December 1998), pp. 24-27.

3 Specification noted by G. Cox, February 1974.

4 Rub, op. cit.

5 Details of additions supplied Walter Emerson, 1975, and from Rub, op. cit.

6 The Organ Voice, vol. 25, no. 2 (June 1999), p. 21; The Sydney Organ Journal, vol. 30, no. 3 (Winter 1999), p. 20.

7 The Sydney Organ Journal, vol. 38, no. 4 (Spring 2007), p. 39.

8 The Sydney Organ Journal, vol. 45, no. 4 (Spring 2014), p. 48; Ian D. Brown & Associates Newsletter (December 2014), p. 3.

9 Specification noted by G. Cox, February 1974, and from Rub, op. cit.