Holtkamp Organ Company

The work produced by the shop has evolved over the years in terms of architectural style, sound, and mechanism.

The founder, Gottlieb Votteler, trained as a general musical instrument builder in Reutlingen, Wittenburg, Germany.

He was a church organist and the owner of a parlor musical instrument store in St. Mary's, Ohio.

In his store he sold music boxes, harmoniums, pianos, and the occasional small pipe organ.

Ownership of the company was shared equally between Heinrich Votteler, Henry Holtkamp, and John Hettche, who was an investor knowledgeable regarding pipe organs.

[1] In 1919, Walter Henry Holtkamp returned from Europe after two years in the Army during the First World War.

Following his appointment, Smith journeyed to France to study with Nadia Boulanger, where through his association with Andre Marchal, Joseph Bonnet, and others in the Paris organ scene, he became aware of and inspired by the music which was then being rediscovered, the organ music of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

It was through this association, and the association with Arthur Quimby, an organist at the Cleveland Museum of Art, that Walter's work began its movement away from a more orchestral oriented organ of the early 1930s, best suited to homophonic music, towards an instrument that would render clear polyphony.This evolution began with a small experimental organ on which Smith and Quimby played literature from the 17th and 18th centuries.

This Rückpositiv division contained the following attributes: the chest had a quick and responsive action, the voicing was transparent and colorful, and the pipework was exposed.

Under the direction of Walter Holtkamp Sr., the company became famous as a pioneer of the Organ Reform Movement in the United States.

Schweitzer had written to Walter Holtkamp from Günsbach, Alsace, May 22, 1934: "Bravo for the first Rückpositiv in America, I congratulate.

"[1] Walter “Chick” Holtkamp joined the firm in 1956 after serving five years in the United States Navy.

After taking over the shop in 1962 he began developing the chests and components necessary for building instruments with mechanical action.

From this point on, the shop built instruments with both mechanical and electro-pneumatic action as the situation required.

This relied upon the tried-and-true slider chest design that the company had built for the past twenty-five years.

Taking a proactive approach, in 1983 Chick founded the Holtkamp/AGO Competition in Organ Composition to encourage composers to write for the instrument.

It was this meeting and the work that followed which gave rise to the first AGO Competition in Organ Improvisation at the 1990 National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts.

From the beginning of his time at the shop, Chris continued the development of tonal and visual design begun by Chick.