Restored organ comes with familiar family name attached
Members of the Pierce family - including actor David Hyde Pierce - dedicated a newly refurbished organ at Bethesda Episcopal Church in Saratoga Springs, New York, this past weekend, local newspapers reported.
[Mr. Pierce] and his three siblings were baptized in the 160-year-old church on Washington Avenue. As a teenager, Hyde Pierce would practice on the church's organ after school when the pews were empty. He played the organ there at his sister, Barbara's, wedding. And he eulogized his beloved parents, George and Laura, inside the church's walls."To come here and remember all of that is meaningful," said the Emmy and Tony award winner, who along with his siblings donated the money necessary to rebuild their home church's 1920s era organ in the building's gallery.
The Pierces were guests at the dedication service and public recital Sunday for the organ, which is a re-creation of the church's 1920 E.M. Skinner pipe organ and is named after their parents. The organ was removed in the 1960s in favor of the more modern Casavant organ that is still the congregation's main instrument. Daniel Lemieux of Syracuse found and assembled the new organ's pieces, most of which date back to the time when the original Skinner was built. The new organ's refurbished 1925 console came from a church outside Philadelphia.
