Resurrection Lutheran Church upgrades 55-year-old organ

• Reprints

Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Within a few years, the organ at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Franklin Park has gone from the mechanical age to the computer age.

The former organ, installed by the Wicks Organ Company of Highland, Ill. in 1956, was a stalwart instrument with mechanical relays, a leather reservoir to control air pressure and magnets under the pipes. The church was in expansion mode at the time, as Franklin Park gained an influx of residents.

It lasted through uncounted weddings, funerals, confirmations, first communions, Sunday services, holidays and concerts.

By the time current director of music and performance Michael Jacklin arrived in 2002, the organ was showing its age. The leather was cracked, the electrical relays needed replacement and, more to the point, it wasn’t sounding as good.

“I was having dead notes,” Jacklin said. “It’s like when you have a typewriter keyboard. You can get by without Z and X for a while, and sometimes W, but when it gets to the vowels, it’s time to shut it down.”

In 2005, the congregation started raising money every way it could. Capital fund pledges, silent auctions, bake sales, car washes, memorial contributions, dinners and solicitation letters to area businesses.

After Christmas 2007, Jacklin and a few others shut down the old organ console with a vengeance, literally taking a chainsaw to it and tossing it into a Dumpster. For a few months, services were accompanied by a piano.

By March 2008, the new organ console was installed at a cost of $40,000. In 2010, the church spent another $25,000 installing a computer interface between the organ and the pipes. During the three years previous, the organ was connected to speakers rather than pipes.

On April 16, Lutheran Resurrection held an organ dedication, with Jacklin providing musical accompaniment to the 1926 silent film “The King of Kings.”

Now that the organ has gone hi-tech, Jacklin said he has the best of three worlds: pipe sounds, digital sounds to supplement the pipes and sounds modules that offer hundreds of orchestral sounds.

Jacklin sat on the wood bench to demonstrate. First, traditional organ sounds boomed through the balcony. Then he pressed a button for harpsichord, then oboe, then used sequencing to record sounds and play them back, making it sound like a full orchestra while playing ‘Ode to Joy’ by Beethoven.

On Easter, Jacklin had 13 musicians to accompany him in the church balcony.

“Then it’s a challenge for the congregation,” Jacklin said. “Is it live, or is it just Michael?”