Peter Collins (organ builder)
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Peter Collins is an English pipe organ builder based in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. He specialises in tracker action organs typically with clean, modernist light wood casework and well-balanced classical voicing. Collins is an advocate of computer-aided design, using it to produce remarkably compact instruments and to control costs as raw materials for pipe organs are often expensive, requiring fine, well-seasoned timber and high quality alloys.
Collins founded his company in 1964. Prior to that, he worked in another established organ building firm. He has built organs varying in size from one stop to over 50 stops.
Examples are to be found in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh; Magdalenenkirche Bayreuth; St Peter Mancroft, Norwich; the Turner Sims hall at Southampton; and a controversial collaboration with digital organ builders Allen in Trönö, Sweden. A notable commission was for the St Albans International Organ Festival (IOF), with which Collins has been associated for some time; the IOF organ was built in 1989 in the style of Andreas Silbermann (1678-1734). Peter Collins's organs are found in a number of other countries, including Australia, France, Germany, Norway, Korea, and the United States. Peter Hurford has played commissioning recitals on a number of Collins organs, and has also recorded on some of them.
