Casavant Frères
| Private | |
| Industry | Pipe organ manufacturing |
| Founded | 1879 in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec |
| Founders | Joseph-Claver and Samuel-Marie Casavant |
| Headquarters | Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada |
|
Areas served
|
Worldwide |
| Website | www |
Casavant Frères is a prominent organ building Canadian company in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, which has been building pipe organs since 1879. As of 2014, they have produced over 3900 organs.
Brothers Joseph-Claver (1855–1933) and Samuel-Marie (1859–1929) got their start in organ-building in the shop of their father Joseph Casavant under his successor Eusèbe Brodeur. Claver worked with Brodeur during 1874–1878, then went to France for a 14-month apprenticeship with the firm of John Abbey in Versailles. He and Samuel then visited many organs and workshops in western Europe before establishing their factory on the site of their father's workshop on rue Girouard in Saint-Hyacinthe in 1879.
Their instruments boasted many innovations unique for that time, such as concave pedalboards, balanced expression pedals, keyboard improvements, and other enhancements. Their reputation as organ builders of international status was cemented in 1891 with their construction of the organ for the Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica, a four-manual organ of eighty-two stops. This famous organ features adjustable combinations and speaking pipes of thirty-two foot length in the façade.
They won the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition held in Antwerp, Belgium in 1930.
They built organs around the world, including Canada, the United States, France, the West Indies, South and Central America, South Africa, and Japan. Their organs have been praised by many famous organists over the last 100 years, including Guilmant, Vierne, Widor, Bonnet, Lemare, Dethier, Courboin, Bingham, and many others who inaugurated and played Casavant organs.
Casavant organs are also found in leading colleges, universities and conservatories in the United States and Canada.
After the death of the Casavant brothers, the company continued to add innovations to their instruments. These include an extraordinarily reliable key contact and tracker touch mechanism, which is a hallmark of the Casavant playing action.
During the 1960s, Casavant pioneered new electronic technology to the capture system of combination actions.
In 1960, the company returned to mechanical action technology (while continuing to build electropneumatic action instruments as well) and has since built over two hundred tracker action instruments ranging in size from a single manual portable Continuo of four stops to two, three, and four manual organs.
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Wikipedia