The Saint Paul Organ is 100+

ABOUT THE ESTEY ORGAN

The Estey Organ, located at Saint Paul United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina, is an Opus 1454 built in 1916. It has Great 4 ranks, Swell 6 ranks, Pedal 1 rank for a total of 11 Ranks.

The organ pipes are all original Principle, Flute, and String ranks. One rank of note, the organ contains one of Estey’s well-known Labial Oboe ranks. This is a rank from the String family built in a way to closely mimic the sound of an oboe. They are becoming increasingly rare. The only known change from the sound of the 1916 original design, is that the pipes of the Swell 8’ Geigen Diapason have been moved over (down 12 notes) so that they now play at 4’ pitch.

The organ was built with an attached console/key desk and tubular pneumatic wind chests. With the Estey style, tubular pneumatic wind chests proved to be unreliable after just a few decades so Norman Greenwood, a sales and service company in Charlotte, North Carolina, installed a new detached console and more modern design electro-pneumatic wind chests from an unknown builder.

VANCE JENKINS, Organist

A proud former student of Dr. Virginia Uldrick, Vance Jenkins is a native Greenvillian whose church music service spans almost four decades. Presently, he is in his 11th year of service as Sanctuary Organist and Music Associate at Buncombe Street United Methodist Church. Vance’s piano studies were with the late Bobbie S. Redick, the late Erma Riggins Looper, John Kenneth Adams at the University of South Carolina, and the late Dr. David Gibson at Furman University. In addition, he studied voice with Dr. Susan Lyle, the late Dr. Virginia Uldrick, Dr. Bingham Vick, and the late Dr. Arpad Darazs. Currently, Vance signs with the South Carolina Bach Society, where he is also a Board Member. He is a former member of the Greenville Chorale, where he as bass-baritone soloist in several of the Chorale’s Peace Center performances.

Vance holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from the University of South Carolina and Master’s Degree in English from Furman University and the University of Oxford (Lincoln College), respectively. A retired educator, Vance has taught at The South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, the Greenville Technical Charter High School where he served as Master Teacher and Instructor in English Language and Literature, as well as having taught as an adjunct professor of English at Furman University. Vance is the recipient of the 2010 Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation Excellence in Education Award, and was a finalist for Greenville County’s 2014 Teacher of the Year and Furman University’s Meritorious Teaching Award in the University’s Undergraduate Evening Studies division.