Orgelbau Wech Pipe Organ

Builder: Robert Wech of Orgelbau Wech
Buchloe, Germany

Queen Anne Lutheran Church is home to a world-class pipe organ. A singing congregation is one of the strong hallmarks of Lutheran worship and QALC has invested in the future by providing
a quality instrument to lead and support congregational song.

The organ was built in 2010 to specifications for this church sanctuary located atop Queen Anne Hill by noted Organ Builder, Robert Wech, President of Orgelbau Wech of Buchloe, Germany, near Munich. The instrument is contained in twin pipe towers that flank the Holy Spirit floor-to-ceiling window in the rear of the church’s worship space.

The instrument is a “tracker” or mechanical action instrument, meaning that slender, strong, and sometimes long pieces of wood (trackers) connect the keyboards of the organ directly to the valves that open beneath pipes chosen to “speak.” This is the oldest and most sensitive key-action system used, allowing the organist to have maximum control over how the organ will play. The sound is produced by wind (air under pressure) generated by a bellow.

The organ consists of 25 stops and more than 1,500 pipes. The two towers of pipes and mechanism are constructed of beautiful German maple wood acquired from high in the Alps. The north tower houses the Great and Swell divisions, and the Pedal division is housed in the south tower. A reversed console of German white oak sits in front of the Swell/Great division tower and has electric stop action.

The new pipe organ was assembled in the Orgelbau Wech shop in Germany. It was pre-voiced, and disassembled before being shipped through the Panama Canal to Oakland, then on rail to Seattle, by truck to Queen Anne Lutheran Church, arriving September 1, 2010. Volunteers from the church assisted Wech and his crew in unloading the shipping container.

Robert Wech was raised in Augsburg, Germany and began his education as an organ designer and builder in 1984 with the firm of Hubert Sandtner in Dillingen/Donau and in the Technical School for Musical Instrument Design and Production in Ludwigsburg. After many years of schooling and on-the-job experience in all aspects of organ craftsmanship, Wech opened his own firm in 2001 and has built close to a dozen instruments including those located at the Cathedral of the Epiphany in Sioux City, Iowa (2006) and at the Pontifical North American College in Vatican City, Italy (2009).