“That’s cool!” “Who made it? China?” “Why is the biggest pipe sounding lowest?” “How much does one cost?” “So it’s a wind instrument, like when we use our lungs to sing? …or blow through a blade of grass?” “Do you get paid to play one?” “Where can we find one?” These are some of the questions the dozen or so children fired at us as we helped them construct a playing pipe organ. One by one they played their little hearts to delight as the giggled and smiled at their creation and the music they made.
Some of the answers they will learn years later in school, in physics class, but most of the answers they discovered themselves as they smoothed their winding of the bellows, helping each other with suggestions. How much does a kit like this one cost and where did it come from? The kit was designed in the Netherlands, built in Oregon, then shipped to the NH Chapter of the American Guild of Organists in two large carrying cases on wheels, and loaned freely to its members as an educational tool to delight and engage young audiences in the sounds of a real pipe organ. Yes, and it plays real music with two different sets of pipes, much as a flute and/or an oboe play music, separately, or together, as long as someone keeps the wind pumping.
A delightful afternoon was shared by all.
Nathan Wells is the Director of the Boys and Girls Club of Berlin, NH, which sponsored the Orgelkids Kit program on July 22nd, 2026. NHAGO former Dean Susan Ferré and her husband, Charles Lang, MD, hosted and led the event.
