Buzard Pipe Organ Builders

06/10/2026

Our two Summer Interns, Ian Ramirez and Justin Rauscher are learning the skills of proper pipe racking. Here they are with the Great Mixture IV for our Opus 50, St. Peter Lutheran, Hemlock, MI.

06/10/2026

For our Walker organ restoration project, Tracey Mitchell is testing the Pedal Bourdon windchest. This chest has been thoroughly restored with all new leather on the pneumatic, the pipe valve, and primary valves.

The pipe being used to test here is a rather beat up old reed pipe which we use for this purpose. Reed pipes take very little wind to make them play, and using this to test even large note actions like this is an excellent "lie detector". If the note valve isn't 100% tightly closed with the note off, this little pipe will alert us.

This may be overkill, since a big 16ft Bourdon pipe with just a little air leaking into it would hardly make a noise, but we are adamant that every one of the +/- 3,500 pipe valves are perfectly sealed and no pipe can murmur. Every single action is tested this way.

The organ has a total of 38 windchests and this one is the 36th to be completed!

05/10/2026

The bellows of the 1958 J.W. Walker organ for St James Cathedral are featured here.
Restoration work continues on this large instrument

04/16/2026

Our Opus 16 organ was built in 1996 for the First Congregational Church of Crystal Lake, Illinois. The church is undertaking renovations to their historic sanctuary, including support work under the floors, painting, and work in the chancel. This week, our team came to the church to cover the interior of the organ. When this work is complete, the pipes an interior of the organ will be cleaned and put back together.
Undertaking this protection work in advance of renovations significantly reduces the chances of dead notes, ciphers, and other issues.

During the course of our work, we were very happy to meet Barbara Thorsen, the long-time organist of First Congregational Church. Having served the congregation since 1953 (a rare seven decades plus!), the congregation has recently named her Organist Emerita. Barbara and Chicago-based musician Andrei Liquer now share the playing duties. We extend to her our very best wishes!

04/06/2026

We are thrilled to have our work featured in this week’s episode of “The King of Instruments”.

Our organs featured on this episode include:

-St. James United Methodist Church, Danville, Illinois (Opus 5, 1987)
-The Chapel of Saint John the Divine (Opus 7, 1991)
-All Saints Episcopal Church, Atlanta, Georgia (Opus 29, 2003)
-Williamsburg Presbyterian Church, Williamsburg, Virginia (Opus 32, 2005)
-St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Denver, Colorado (Opus 26, 2001)
-Glenview Community Church, Glenview, Illinois (Opus 21, 1991)
-Second Presbyterian Church, Bloomington, Illinois (Opus 37, 2008)

This week we explore the history of the Buzard Organ Company of Champaign, Illinois and listen to music performed on organs built by that company. The King of Instruments is a production of the Orga

04/06/2026

DOUBLE-DIGIT (Herz) POLYPHONY!

Our Service Department Foreman, Dave Brown, apprenticed in an organ factory in Australia with a training lineage that includes the English organbuilder and innovator, John Compton. One of Compton's most interesting and useful inventions was his Polyphone pipe, patented in 1932.

The Polyphone is a large, single organ pipe with the ability to play the upper 8 notes of the 32ft octave. This is essentially a large-scaled Bourdon, built with a series of pneumatically controlled valves which open additional chambers to "detune" the B pitch down by semi-tones to E. Compton usually wired the lowest 4 notes to the E, with the idea that all that was required down there was a rumble!

We hope to make use of Polyphones in our instruments as alternatives to the electronic 32ft voices currently used in some of our small and medium-sized organs.

Working mainly from the original Compton blueprints but making certain modifications, Dave has built a sample Polyphone pipe for our firm to try out and assess. One of the modifications in this prototype uses a further trick to get the pipe to play down to 32ft D #, one note lower than Compton's original plan.

This sample pipe has now been installed in the 1976 Reuter/2019 Buzard Organ at St. John's Lutheran Church here in Champaign, where our Keith Williams is Music Director. The pipe and its deep sonorities was first heard (and felt!) by the parish on Easter Day.

Once we're in our new factory building, we intend to develop the Polyphone concept further and create two pipes to play the entire twelve notes of the octave. Using our CNC technology, we look forward to being able to produce these wonderful pipes commercially. There has already been some interest from friends of the firm who would love to have real 32ft tone in their instruments!

04/03/2026

THE CURTAIN FALLS. Since 2003, our service department operation has been based in a facility on Hickory Street, less than two blocks from our main factory in downtown Champaign. We have undertaken everything from small repairs to the renovation and restoration of complete instruments here. This space now adds organ workshop to its list of former occupants. It has been home to a printing company and a car dealership and repair shop.

This week, we moved out of this space and began consolidating our operation into our new home on the grounds of the former Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois where we will operate the entire company out of a single facility. Stay tuned for more!

04/01/2026

Congratulations to Fred Bahr, our Acting President and Tonal Director, on his inclusion in the Marquis Who’s Who list. See this press release to read more about Fred’s life and accomplishments in the field of organ building.

March 25, 2026 -- Fredrick Bahr praised for more than 45 years of professional success

02/17/2026

Our retired founder John Buzard and our company were featured in a wonderful episode of Living the Creative Life. Check it out!

01/19/2026

ROUSED FROM SLUMBER. Recently, a new home for the Saint Andrew's Lutheran Campus Center at the University of Illinois was completed. The former structure was taken down and this built in its place. It includes a new sanctuary, meeting and lounge spaces, and apartments available for lease to students. Our Opus 4 organ has served this community since its installation in 1988. It has been our joy to set up in this sweet little instrument in its old/new home.