2004-10-30/2019-04-29 - Note from the OHS PC Database, derived from A Guide to North American Organbuilders, by David H. Fox (Richmond, Va.: Organ Historical Society, 1991; rev. ed., 1997, with updated information). Edited for the revised OHS Online Database website, 2017. - Nelson Ernest Buechner was born June 20, 1931. He was with the Wanamaker shop of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1949. An organist, he became assistant curator of the Wanamaker organ in 1964; and curator in 1978. Nelson Buechner died May 1, 1994. Sources: Organ Handbook 1989 (Organ Historical Society), 4. The American Organist, August 1994, 37.
2018-05-07/2019-02-11 - Note from Organ Database Builders editor Charles Eberline, December 24, 2017. - Nelson Ernest Buechner was a protégé and confidant of Mary Vogt, who was Wanamaker Grand Court organist in Philadelphia from 1917 to 1966. He became interested in the Wanamaker organ while he was in high school and soon became an assistant organist under her. When William F. Ruff retired as head of organ maintenance in 1964, John R. McCormack was named Ruff-s successor, and Buechner became McCormack-s assistant. When McCormack retired in 1978, Buechner was named supervisor of organ maintenance, a position he held until his death. He also served as organist and choirmaster at several churches in the Philadelphia area. Sources: Ray Biswanger, Music in the Marketplace: The Story of Philadelphia-s Historic Wanamaker Organ, from John Wanamaker to Lord & Taylor (Bryn Mawr, Pa.: Friends of the Wanamaker Organ, 1999), 197-198, 239. Obituary, The Tracker 38, no. 2 (1994): 6.
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