Shepherd of the Hills Catholic Church - Eden

Wisconsin, USA

Shepherd of the Hills Parish is a “new” parish located in the Diocese of Milwaukee. Four Catholic Churches in Armstrong, Dotyville, Eden and Mitchell, Wisconsin sold their respective buildings and combined to form this larger, new church. The Parish Mission Statement puts it this way: "United in Word and Eucharist, Shepherd of the Hills Parish strives to transform the world into the Kingdom of God through worship, Christian formation, fellowship, outreach, and evangelization."

Triune Music worked hand-in-hand with the professionals at C.D. Smith Construction (Fond du Lac) to craft this four-division, custom pipe organ that flanks the “Good Shepherd” window, directly above the altar. You will note that the pipes of the facade were designed in many “groups of fours” as the parish itself was formed from four elements. The top surface of the altar contains the marble crosses that were removed from each of the former four altars. Many of the windows and treasures from the various churches were preserved by Mark Joseph in the design of this spectacular new worship space.

Triune Music designed the entire façade and built much of the instrument in our own wood shop (including the support structure for the façade, the swell box, and even the swell shades). We installed the electro-mechanical action in all of the chests and built the magnet boxes for the façade windlines.

With pipework in all four of the organ divisions, it is extremely difficult to tell which stops are pipe and which stops are digital. The reason that this instrument is so successful is that we chose each digital sample specifically to blend with the 75% tin pipework selected for this job. Where pipes would sound best in a division we used pipes, and where no one could tell the difference, we used custom digital samples. This was a groundbreaking installation in 2005, given our new-found freedom with Rodgers Masterpiece Organs and the ability to design a totally “custom organ” via Rodgers Organ Architect. This instrument helped Triune Music set a new standard in the Midwest as one of the finest hybrid organ builders in America.

Fr. Joseph J. Juknialis, Pastor
Michelle O'Brien, Music Minister