Organ - Fort Church - Willemstad, Curaçao - Musical Instruments on Waymarking.com

The Fort Church was built in 1769 and features former warehouses under the Church and a museum on the history and culture of Protestantism in Curaçao from 1643. It has sturdy walls that were built to withstand any attack, and the evidence below explains it did. (A cannonball embedded in an exterior wall has been left as a reminder of the attack by the British in 1804 when the Fort was shelled. Local legend has it that the cannonball was fired from Captain Bligh's infamous Bounty).

The Fort church is not large, (20.5 X 13.25 m), but is particularly high, with the tallest point of the tower reaching 16 meters above ground level. Given the small area of space available within the Fort, careful planning had to be done for the way it would be used. The high ceilings also doubled as an effective area in which to dry and store ship sails, which were hoisted up by pulley.

The Precentor-Sexton Hendrik van Hulst originally designed an organ with ten registers, but in 1785 - at least in the eyes of Ds. Rudolf Widrik - this was too small and he enlarged it by a further four registers. The organ now in use dates from 1963 and was totally restored in 2000. This organ has breastwork, backwork and two manuals, a foot pedal and 17 registers. It was built by Flentrop Orgelbouw N.V. Zaandam, in the Netherlands.

After various renovations done in earlier years, the Church finally closed due to significant deterioration in late 1988. On February 1st, 1990, a massive restoration project began. The total cost of this restoration work amounted to some 2.5 million Antillian Guilders, of which 600,000 NAfl was raised locally by church members and other parties in Curaçao. The remainder was paid by the 'Meerjarenplan Nederlandse Antillen' an aid plan financed by the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Sunday morning services begin at 9:30. Wedding services are also held at the Church, and because of the excellent acoustics, The Cultural Committee Fortchurch organizes classical and popular music concerts and other cultural events featuring local and international artists.

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