Dr. Eric Stroud, Director of Music Ministry of St. Thomas the Apostle Church.
The Saint Thomas the Apostle Pipe Organ was originally built in 1913 by the Radjewicz Organ Company in Millburn, New Jersey for Saint Boniface Church on Main Street in Paterson, New Jersey. Upon the closing of Saint Boniface Church in 1977, the Saint Thomas the Apostle Rosary Society saved the instrument from the wrecking ball by raising funds to purchase and move the small 14 rank organ to Saint Thomas in Oak Ridge, New Jersey. The Peragallo Organ Company was commissioned to procure the instrument and oversee its installation at Saint Thomas that very year. The fourteen rank instrument would lead the parish family of Saint Thomas in sung prayer for twenty-three years till the year 2000 when the "Millennium Organ Restoration Campaign" was initiated to raise funds to preserve, repair, update and expand the instrument to better suit the parish needs and its growing music ministry.
The "Millennium Organ Restoration Campaign" won the support of the whole Parish resulting in an instrument capable of the widest variety of musical styles. The console was built with the possibility to expand the organ as funds became available. Careful consideration went into saving the best ranks of pipes from the original 1913 organ and which new ranks of pipes were needed to finish the total design of the new instrument.
Mrs. Frances Dorigo was a parishioner who upon hearing and seeing the new instrument at the 2001 dedication concert became enamored with the new range of sounds that could be produced by the two manual 48 stop instrument. With her generosity and many others in our parish contributing to the "Organ Preservation Fund" by donating funds in memory of family, friends and loved ones, the organ was expanded to three manuals and 65 stops thus completing the original Millennium Organ Restoration Campaign design, in the year 2009.
The Church of Saint Thomas the Apostle and its benefactors are proud to have completed the instrument to foster the great Catholic Church music tradition of the past, present and future, to glorify the Lord!