St. Paul's Episcopal Church, San Antonio, Texas Presents William James Ross, Organist, in recital March 21, 2010. Organ Works of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) presented on his 325th birthday as performed by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847) at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, Germany August 6, 1840.

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William James Ross is a native Texan born in Dallas. He has won prizes both as an organist and as a composer. His major teachers in Organ performance were Donald Willing, Vernon de Tar and Marilyn Mason and in music composition were Ross Lee Finney and Leslie Bassett at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is currently working on several commissions for new music, practicing his organ playing, enjoying his family, feasting on the beauty of life as well as its awesome food, traveling, and sharing wherever he can with his friends. He plans to devote his mature years to doing more teaching as well as making more good music.

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The Pipe Organ of St Paul’s Episcopal Church
Over the past few years, during this time of total rebuild and upgrading of chest action, painstaking efforts have been made to maintain and preserve the pipework and chests of the original 1927 Moeller pipe organ, along with its many additions by the same in 1954 when the church was remodeled.

Since that time of remodeling, others have also added their pipes and chests. These were carefully analyzed for their integrity and usefulness in the current scheme of things, adding one of our own new chest and various sets of vintage pipework reflective of the era represented by the ensemble.

Wind pressures have been increased, chamber openings opened up, voicing articulated where appropriate, scaling increased and matched among divisional principal choruses, relocation of ranks for optimum service needs and sound reflectivity, bolstering of air capacity of wind lines and reservoirs, efficient and logical borrowing of pipes between two stops in the same division, and complete rewiring and upgrading of chests and relay systems.

With the inclusion of the new Ahlborn-Galanti AG2400 Lighted Draw Knob Console, with wooden keyboards, organists can avail themselves of all the current modern technology found in the organbuilding world. From an onboard transposer and record/playback device to melody and pedal line couplers, this surge of electrical and computer engineering we are experiencing is making its way into even the ancient art of this ‘ole world craft’.

While none of us would argue the obvious value and preference of real pipes over digital sampling, regardless of how sophisticated it has become with today’s advances in technology, this organ does allow an organist to experiment with other genres of pipe organ sound and create 4 alternate stop lists of their choosing which may or may not incorporate the existing 22 ranks of pipes found in this unique “King of Instruments�......indeed!!!

Click here to learn more about the organ.


Improvised Introduction and the Fugue in E-flat major (St. Anne):


Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele:


Prelude and Fugue in A minor:


Passacaglia in C minor:





Pastorale, Part 1:



Pastorale, Parts 2-4:


Toccata and Fugue in D minor:


Improvised Free Fantasy on "Herzlich thut mich verlangen":