Len Levasseur

The book presented here is the outcome of an interesting journey that began over 40 years ago with my full-time employment at Lowell Technological Institute. I had been a student here (1965-1969) earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology. Through a strange turn of events (covered elsewhere in this book), I became the LTI Diving coach in the Fall of 1972. In the summer of 1978, Athletic Director Dr. Jim Ciszek approached me and asked if I would be interested in assuming the role of "Sports Information Director" or "SID". This role expanded to what eventually became the role of NCAA Compliance Coordinator, which I held until 2009. Upon my retirement, I considered the fact that I had kept lists of all athletes from 1978 until my retirement...but, what about all the athletes who had come before 1978? Six years later, after digging through yearbook, campus newspaper and Lowell Sun archives, this account of the Lowell Textile school, its city and its Athletics programs came into being.

LAWRENCE I. PHELPS (1923-1999) set the North American Organ Reform movement on its edge with articulate notoriety following the mid-1952 culmination of the new Aeolian-Skinner organ for the Extension of Boston's First Church of Christ, Scientist - The Mother Church. Entrusted with the monumental instrument's tonal design, Phelps specified the scales and spent months tonal finishing on-site. Subsequent articles on the design and use of compound stops, advocacy for a return to slider windchests, and more empirical scaling, together with published articles, created no small degree of controversy. Perceived as a radical upstart, Phelps clearly embraced the task of pushing organ reform beyond the trails so daringly blazed by Walter Holtkamp and G. Donald Harrison. Burton Tidwell's study chronicles the prolific work of Lawrence Phelps from its beginnings in his native Boston, his pioneering work as tonal director of Casavant Fr res-embracing full encasement and mechanical action, and the organs created under his own banner as Lawrence Phelps & Associates. Profusely illustrated, the book pays homage to the quest of one musician to realize his vision of an ideal vehicle for communicating the great body of idiomatic organ literature while inspiring other musicians and composers. The author worked closely with Phelps in the first drafts of this book and has built a compelling text incorporating the subject's own prolific writings to illuminate this significant contribution to our musical heritage.