Gabriel Kney (21 November 1929 – 8 November 2024) was a Canadian builder of

pipe organs The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ...

based in

London, Ontario London is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River (Ontario), Thames River and N ...

Life and career

Kney was born in

Speyer Speyer (, older spelling ; ; ), historically known in English as Spires, is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in the western part of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the r ...

, Germany. At the age of 15, he apprenticed to Paul Sattel of Speyer to become an organ builder, and concurrently studied organ and composition with Erhard Quack and Ludwig Doerr at the Bishop’s Institute for Church Music in Speyer. In 1951, he moved to Canada to work as a voicer with the Keates Organ Co. In 1955 he formed with John Bright the Kney and Bright Organ Co to build tracker organs. Blanton (1957) described their first instrument as "a handsome little organ with mechanical action, slider chests, 1-3/4" pressure". They were at the vanguard of the tracker organ revival in Canada, so much so that they were then to build 30 electro-pneumatic organs before customers caught on and started ordering instruments with mechanical action. In the early 1960s, they rebuilt the organs of Aeolian Hall in London and St Michael's Cathedral in Toronto. In 1967, Kney formed Gabriel Kney Pipe Organ Builders, Ltd., and by 1990 he and his seven employees had built more than 130 organs for customers across the United States and Canada. Some of the best examples of this company's designs are the organs of

Roy Thomson Hall Roy Thomson Hall is a concert hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located downtown in the city's entertainment district, it is home to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, and the esports team Toronto Defiant. Opened ...

in Toronto, Ontario, Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City, Christ Church Parish in Pensacola, Florida, and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Kney died on 8 November 2024, at the age of 94.

References

External links

Gabriel Kney, Pipe Organ Builder

Audio archive of performances on the 1987 Gabriel Kney organ at the University of Saint Thomas in St. Paul, MN
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kney, Gabriel 1929 births 2024 deaths Musical instrument manufacturing companies of Canada Canadian pipe organ builders Companies based in London, Ontario