2004-10-30/2019-04-29 - Note from the OHS PC Database, derived from A Guide to North American Organbuilders, rev. ed. by David H. Fox (Richmond, Va.: Organ Historical Society, 1997). - Born 1925 in Pomona, California; graduate of Pomona College; with Alfred G. Kilgen firm of Los Angeles, California, 1951-1961; associated with organ firm in Alabama; partner with Pete Sieker in Abbott & Sieker of Los Angeles, California, 1961; active in 1989; retired by 1996. Sources: American Institute of OrganBuilders, 1989 membership list. Uwe Pape; The Tracker Organ Revival in America, 1978. 409. Information contained in a letter to David H. Fox.
2015-10-31/2019-04-29 - From the OHS Database, Builders Listing editor, updated Mar 5, 2016. - Richard Larry Abbott was born July 24, 1925, in Pomona, California. He was a graduate of Pomona College. He worked with Pipe Organs Inc., an offshoot of the Alfred G. Kilgen firm* of Los Angeles, California, (1951-1961). While working there, he met Pete Sieker, a native of Germany who had trained in the traditional apprentice program and worked with several German firms. The two men became partners in Abbott & Sieker of Los Angeles, California, 1961-1994. Their firm began the revival of tracker action organbuilding in the west coast of the United States. Abbott retired sometime before 1994, he died July 29, 2001, in Santa Monica, California. Source: Pete Sieker, "Abbott and Sieker" in The Organ: An Encyclopedia edited by Douglas Bush & Richard Kassel (New York: Psychology Press, 2006), 1-2. *This is the only mention of 'Pipe Organs Inc.' as being an offshoot of Alfred Kilgen's firm. David Fox lists Abbott as being a staff member of Alfred Kilgen, but not Pete Sieker. Fox also states that Kilgen sold his business to Richard C. Simonton, January 1, 1956. Simonton, a Los Angles businessman and entrepreneur, was a theater organ enthusiast (he had two in his home), but we have no record of his owning an organbuilding firm. -Ed.
2015-11-18/2019-04-29 - From the OHS Database Builders Listing Editor, May 19, 2016. - Program: Music for Organ and Instruments, February 10, 2003 St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Santa Monica [California] "A concert of music for organ and instruments was given at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Santa Monica. [material omitted] The program was in memory of organbuilder Larry Abbott who died in 2001, and was played on an organ built by the firm of Abbott and Sieker. Larry was a long-time member of this chapter and a founding member of the American Institute of Organbuilders. At the preceding dinner, Pete Sieker spoke about the history of their firm, which led the revival of tracker organ building on the West Coast in the early 1960s and built or rebuilt over 100 organs." Source: Website of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, (http://www.laago.org/gallery/#) Accessed Nov 18, 2015.
2016-03-05/2020-04-09 - See main entry at
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