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Stephen Kowalyshyn

Stephen Paul Kowalyshyn

Stephen Paul Kowalyshyn, born of German and Ukrainian ancestry, grew up in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Fascinated with the sound of the pipe organ from early childhood, he designed and built a little 25-note table positive organ at the age of 13, having never seen the inside of the real instrument or even having examined a drawing of the traditional pipe organ’s mechanism. The two little organ pipes in an old cuckoo clock he had disassembled suggested how to make the pipes. And really for him at the time, the rest of pipe organ building was merely mechanical common sense. He entered his little instrument in the junior high school Science Fair and played it for assemblies in the school gymnasium.

Having graduated with a degree in organ performance from Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore, under Arthur Howes, he began his apprenticeship in organ building with Charles Fisk in 1972. Charles had built his opus 35 for Mt. Calvary Church at Howes’ request—it was the Conservatory students’ chief recital instrument and the one on which Stephen played his senior recital. At Fisk Stephen has been involved in every aspect of the organ builder’s art, many for several years’ duration: woodworking and cabinet making, keyboard making, action making and adjusting, pipe making, flue pipe voicing, reed pipe voicing, tonal design and finishing, and, mostly for his own diversion, 3D CAD design of small pipe organs. His contributions to the technical and tonal sides of the Fisk organ since Charles’ death have helped maintain the leadership of C. B. Fisk, Inc., in the organ-building world. He continues working as senior flue voicer, occasionally assisting with the tonal finishing of Fisk instruments. Stephen was also for many years organist and choirmaster and professional chorister in a number of different churches.
March 3, 2016

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