Our Organ

The organ in St. John’s Church was built in 1899 by the Karn-Warren company of Woodstock, Ontario, and was installed in St. Jude’s Church in Oakville. In 1937, the organ was rebuilt by Casavant Freres of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. The original pipework was retained and revoiced, and a new electro-pneumatic console and action was installed to replace the old mechanical action.

In 1968, the organ was purchased by St. John’s, and was installed there by Ross Doddington. Over the next decades, a number of new stops were added. By 2010’s, the organ was becoming increasingly unreliable, and the demands of the music program were outgrowing what was still a rather small instrument. The search began for a new three-manual console, which was installed in 2023 by Derek Verveer of the Oxford Organ Company of Salford, Ontario. The new console allowed space to add about 25 new digital stops, providing a rich supplemental foundation for the existing pipework and greatly increasing the versatility of the instrument.