New construction

The reputation of Van den Heuvel is established world-wide. The impressive 32’ organs in Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland are famous. But the Van den Heuvel organ designers, builders, voicers and tuners do not only consider the larger church and concert organs legitimate musical instruments: they plan, build restore and maintain smaller pipe organs with equal care. Small church organs, choir organs, practice organs and residence organs are an important part of their production too. Each pipe organ is custom built in order to meet the special demands of the customer. Each organ is a work of art with its own distinctive architectural harmony, technique and sound. The organ case designs are adapted as much as possible to the architecture of the building. There is regular collaboration with well-known architects and organ experts. Openness and, above all, thinking along with clients is very important to Van den Heuvel.

We cordially invite you to make an appointment with us. We can visit the location and advise you.

Jan & Peter van den Heuvel

Jan L. van den Heuvel-Organ Builders
Amstelwijckweg 44
NL-3316BB Dordrecht
T 00 31 78 6179540
E-mail vdheuvel.orgelbouw@wxs.nl
www.vandenheuvel-orgelbouw.nl

Restoration

In addition to new organ constructions, restoration and reconstruction, as well as maintenance of pipe organs, are also important activities of Van den Heuvel.

The starting point for restoration is in principle to reconstruct the instruments back to their original style. Every historic organ has a history that is connected to people, times and events. This makes historical instruments special. One often recognizes the joy and involvement of the people who have worked on the organ over the years, sometimes unfortunately the opposite is also observed. When it comes to sound, restoration often involves a lively history. In depth knowledge of all contributes to the enthusiasm to pass it on to future generations.

Working with new instruments and with old ones are two completely different worlds Every old organ has a history that is closely bound up with people, epochs and events. And each of these histories is different. This makes organs from past epochs unique witnesses of their age. The reconstruction of a historical organ includes the rebuilding of lost parts to the original condition. It is our requirement to refer back for the initial technical and tonal status to that cultural in-heritance which may have been partially lost through the passage of time. Missing parts are reconstructed in accordance with material and building style of the original builder. The sound of a restored organ is a way for us to experience living history. We see our work as part of a continuum: we are doing our best to ensure that the history of organ building is handed down to generations yet to come. It is this that makes restoration such a highly gratifying task.

For new organs, we search for the very best realized in times past in order to let this result in a very personal style. Van den Heuvel build as much as possible in their own workshops in order to meet with the special requirements and wishes of organ consultants and customers. One of our main principles is to get to know the special atmosphere and location for each new instrument we construct. We believe that the design of the organ, its acoustic concept and its technical structure are all equally essential to its completion and character. Each instrument develops thus its own character and takes over a certain place in the history of our company. Every organ from our company represents the work of the whole team. Our success is based on the commitment and the continuously improved expert knowledge of all our employees. Only qualified specialists work in our company, and they invest their heart and soul in it.

Pre-owned pipe organs

Van den Heuvel is one of the market leaders in the field of pre-owned organs. Feel free to contact us if you are looking for an instrument or want to sell one. We mediate on a commission basis and offer you an all-round carefree package from mediation, dismantling to repair and rebuilding. We are also happy to take over the search for a suitable pipe organ.

Looking for a new destination for existing pipe organs

During recent decades, unfortunately, churches have been closed, demolished or transferred to a new destination. In addition to construction of new pipe organs, also organ transfer are considered as an option.

Through mediation of Van den Heuvel, several churches, music schools and private individuals, both in the Netherlands as abroad, have been able to purchase a solid built organ that was suitable for their specific situation. Van den Heuvel has a large international network with addresses of churches, organists, organ consultants who are looking for a beautiful well-built pipe organ.

If you therefore consider to find another destination for your church organ, we would like to do our utmost to realize this in good cooperation with you. We look forward to your email or phone call!

Maintenance, tuning and major maintenance

Maintenance and tuning

After construction or restoration of a pipe organ, we offer you help, as we consider our relationship with customers to be very important. Objective, clear advice and perfect maintenance is a first requirement, whereby we always try to protect the customer from unforeseen financial expenses.

In addition to Van den Heuvel organs, we also maintain and overhaul organs of various colleagues as well as historical instruments.

Usually once every two or three years a general tuning is sufficient. Interim tuning and any technical maintenance can of course always take place. We do our very best to carry out all work to your satisfaction, even when it comes to special concert dates!

We offer our regular customers a very interesting maintenance contract.

Major maintenance

In addition to the regular maintenance and tuning, our specialized employees also regularly carry out so called “major maintenance work”. These activities often receive less attention in the publicity, but are very important to keep organs in good condition and thus prevent important costs in long term.

An organ should be cleaned every 15 ~20 years. This frequency however depends on the amount of dust and the circumstances in which is the organ set up and the intensity of use. During such a job we remove all pies, clean the mechanical parts and all other parts in the organ case. After re-installing the pipes in the organ, the voicing will be checked and optimized where necessary.

If you have any wishes or questions regarding tuning, voicing, technical maintenance or cleaning of your pipe organ, please do not hesitate to contact us!