HISTORIC SOUND

St. Stanislaus Church dedicates newly repaired organ that was installed in 1902

Alfred Fedak, professional organist and composer, and Alice Sorensen, music director for St. Stanislaus Church in Amsterdam, share a smile behind the parish’s newly restored organ at the instrument’s dedication concert in November 2025. (Provided photo)

The hills of Amsterdam are alive with the sound of music — and it’s coming from St. Stanislaus Church.

The local church is proud to present its newly restored and renovated historic pipe organ, which is over 120 years old, and was debuted in a concert late last year. The organ’s old console (the keyboard and control center of the instrument) was removed and replaced with a Rodgers Imagine Series 239MVe two-manual console in a custom cherry finish. The new digital console replaced the organ’s outdated system that still utilized leather straps to connect the console’s pedals to other parts of the instrument. 

The church’s organ, first installed in 1902, was kept up to date and tuned annually, but as parts of the console deteriorated over time, the console eventually needed to be updated. 

Alice Sorensen, music director for St. Stanislaus, first learned about the needed repairs in late 2023. Sorensen was looking into bringing in a professional organist to help revive the parish’s annual Christmas Messiah concert, which had not been held in years. 

A self-taught organist, Sorensen knew how to play the instrument but wasn’t trained to put on a professional concert.

“If you were to come to St. Stan’s on any Sunday, you would hear the hymns, and I play them just fine, but really any trained organist can really make it sing,” she said. 

She contacted Alfred Fedak, a local Amsterdam musician, conductor and organist, to perform the show. But after coming to the parish, Fedak had to be the bearer of bad news: there was too much in need of repair for him to fully play the instrument.

“When I got to the church, I found the organ was in really poor condition,” he told The Evangelist. “Much of it was not working, and that which was working was unreliable. I passed all that along to Alice and encouraged her to see if anything could be done about the instrument.”

“I thought I’m never going to be able to do this production again because no organist is going to come and play on this organ,” Sorensen said. “And second of all, I know I have this instrument that I know is going to need significant rehab.”

Sorensen went to the church about the repairs, not sure how it was going to go. But the church got an estimate, working with Mark Carlson of L.A. Carlson Company & Comet Organ Company, successor to L.A. Carlson, and wrote a check for the renovations. 

The church needed to remove the organ’s old console and install a new one, as some parts of the organ that needed replacing weren’t made anymore. The church ordered parts, had the new console made and installed. The work was completed in November 2024, just in time for the Messiah concert, which Fedak came back to perform. 

A year later, the formal dedication concert was held on Nov. 30, which drew over 200 people in attendance. Fedak designed the concert with tributes celebrating the church’s Polish heritage and featured works by Polish composers, and featured a special piece composed by Fedak, commissioned by lifelong parishioners Jim and Dolores Dybas in memory of their friend, Mark Dylong.

Fedak said he “couldn’t be happier” to collaborate with St. Stanislaus on the concert. Growing up in New Jersey, Fedak attended a Polish parish himself. It was a nice nostalgia to be back in a similar setting, playing and singing the same Polish hymns he grew up with as a child. 

“To play in a church very similar to the one I grew up in, and to play music based on these very same tunes, was really special for me,” he said. 

Sorsensen said parishioners had been huge supporters of the organ’s updates — even if some at first were nervous that the changes might change the organ’s sound. But all 22 of the organ’s original pipes were kept; only the organ’s console was switched out, so the music sounds the same, Sorsensen said, only now there’s more to work with. 

“I think people were nervous that it would sound different or it would sound too loud or not be the organ that they’ve known for 100 years, but they were excited to hear that it sounded just like our organ because it is the same pipes, only better,” she said. “All the stops sound now, everything is connected and usable at our disposal. And it has a bunch of digital components as well — so for sounds we’re looking for where we don’t have the pipes for those sounds — we have digital opportunities to create them.”

Sorsensen added that it’s hard to see the organ as something becoming “a lost art,” and that lack of knowledge was the main reason the organ’s repairs went unnoticed for so long. 

“The number of actual organists who are classically trained are so few, that I think a lot of churches have this problem where a lot of people don’t realize the disrepair of the instruments because the people who are coming in to play, as music directors like myself, we do our best, but there’s just nothing that’s going to give me the amount of knowledge that someone like Alfred or a classically trained, formally educated organist is going to have.”

Fedak said the organ’s decline in popularity may be due to its association with church music, but doesn’t believe that to be a bad thing: “There should be a place one can ... listen to something very different, and something that is dedicated to worship.”

And with a new console at the ready, there is hope that more interest might be drummed up for an instrument that is ready for playing.

“I want to emphasize how special it is that St. Stan’s cares about liturgical tradition, Catho­lic music; you don’t find that everywhere,” Sorensen said. “There’s just such an incredible devotion to music and this parish, and it’s really something special.”

Fedak said he hopes to return to the church soon and give the parish another chance to hear the new organ sing.

“It’s a really wonderful place and the people are so nice,” he said. “I just felt so welcomed there; it was a real joy to do this.”