The documented Opus 29 chapter at Immanuel Lutheran Church
Martin Ott Opus 29 was a mechanical organ built in 1983 for Immanuel Lutheran Church in Waterloo, Illinois. The rear-balcony instrument was first played on Easter Sunday in 1985. Pastor Robert Preece and soprano Linda Preece are named in the fundraising and purchase period.
The date line for Opus 29 reads 1983. For the Immanuel Lutheran Church project in Waterloo, Illinois, it is useful evidence, but it should not stand for every missing milestone in the build. The date belongs to the named project at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Waterloo, Illinois, while later events keep their own dates. Ownership and playing condition today are not implied.
What survives about the room at Immanuel Lutheran Church: Opus 29
The documented place is Immanuel Lutheran Church, Waterloo, Illinois. The name tells us that the commission belonged to a worship community, not how the sanctuary was built or how long a chord remained in the room. The surviving account does not identify ceiling height, reflective surfaces, chamber depth, or later alterations. Those omissions prevent a confident description of the venue's acoustics.
Numbers before tonal claims: Opus 29
For Opus 29, the numerical outline is 16 stops against 18 ranks. For the Immanuel Lutheran Church project in Waterloo, Illinois, stops are the organist's tonal selections; ranks are pipe rows. For Opus 29, ranks outnumber stops by 2. The difference hints at compound resources without naming them, so no specific mixture or mutation should be inferred. At Immanuel Lutheran Church in Waterloo, Illinois, because the surviving evidence here does not include a complete stop list, no reed, flute, string, mixture, manual, or pedal resource is added by assumption.
This brief numerical profile belongs to the Waterloo, Illinois chapter of Opus 29. In the Immanuel Lutheran Church account from Waterloo, Illinois, it should not be blended with an undated stop list or with the specification of another instrument by the same builder. A later source could reveal additions, removals, or shared resources, but only if it names the instrument at Immanuel Lutheran Church and date clearly. At Immanuel Lutheran Church in Waterloo, Illinois, the historical count therefore remains a reference point, not a current inventory.
The mechanism described for Immanuel Lutheran Church: Opus 29
For Opus 29 at Immanuel Lutheran Church, the phrase mechanical action is one of the few firm technical labels in the overview. It connects the keyboard physically with the wind valves, but it does not specify whether the keydesk is attached, detached, suspended, or arranged through a particular set of linkages. Those details remain project questions unless the narrative names them.
How to read the surviving design evidence: Opus 29
The design becomes clearer through the details on the page: it was placed on the rear balcony and it was first played on Easter Sunday 1985. In a sanctuary, tonal resources can serve worship as well as occasional performance. The available facts establish the named design features, not the registrations chosen by players or the musical habits of the parish. A dated programme and full disposition would make that history more precise. The listed 16-stop, 18-rank scale remains the numerical boundary for this reading.
What the source says after 1983: Opus 29
The page also follows Janusz Sijka, a Polish Solidarity participant sponsored by local churches. The Ott shop hired him as a trained welder, and the source says he worked on Opus 29 and the next 15 instruments before moving to Chicago. His account adds a named workshop craftsperson and his metalworking background to the parish's Easter milestone.
A source trail for the Immanuel Lutheran Church instrument: Opus 29
The archived Immanuel Lutheran Church account points to 2 files matching Opus 29. The first path is images/029/029_d.jpg. In the Immanuel Lutheran Church account from Waterloo, Illinois, a matching number is useful provenance, but subject, photographer, date, and rights must still be checked against the image itself. Within the documented Waterloo chapter, the extracted captions do not settle either authorship or permission.
The source follows Opus 29 through the events described above and no further. A recent condition statement from Immanuel Lutheran Church would answer more than a page of general organ history. So would a complete stop list tied to a date and a clearly credited photograph.