1877 Father Willis Organ at Salisbury Cathedral (UK)
About Us
ALTUS virtual pipe organs (VPO) are built by ALTUS KLASS LLC (Nigeria) in partnership with Eminent Orgelbouw (The Netherlands) - the first European electronic organ company (1960). The brand, manufactured in the Lelystad factory of Eminent Orgelbouw, is the product result of an intensive research and a concerted effort to revolutionize the Nigerian digital organ landscape, having observed a preponderance of instruments with bland and unrealistic sound, employing sampling technology that is decades behind the most modern technologies. The successful survey of the global digital organ industry that birthed the ALTUS VPO brand was specifically aimed at the development of a product line that would be sustainable within the Nigerian economy and also representative of contemporary solutions. Beyond serving the digital organ industry, ALTUS KLASS provides a broad range of consultancy services to ensure a healthy pipe organ culture in Nigeria.
Lead Consultant Dr. Ayo Oluranti (formerly Ogunranti) is a professionally trained composer, conductor and organist who has worked in the music scenes in Nigeria, UK & USA in the last 35 years. He has successfully designed and managed both liturgical and pentecostal church music programs. Ayo has conducted professional choirs and orchestras, and given recitals on historic and celebrity organs at home and abroad. His compositions have been performed in Africa, Asia, Europe and N. America.
Oluranti was previously the Composer-In-Residence & Associate Organist at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh, USA, where he also conducted the Pittsburgh Festival Orchestra. He is a composer-member of Bafrik, Brazil.
Ayo graduated with first-class honours (summa cum laude) in Composition & Organ Performance from the University of Southampton, UK. He holds an MA and a PhD in Composition & Theory from the University of Pittsburgh, USA. With a background in the fields of Industrial & Production Engineering as well as Computer Hardware Technology, Ayo is abreast with the latest research in the field of organ technology.
Associate Consultant Graham Goode has vast experience in the virtual pipe organ industry. He currently focuses on the creation of sample sets for different applications and sampler engines including Hauptwerk.
Graham's philosophy on virtual pipe organ creation involves both an historical preservation perspective (re-creative) as well as a creative synthesis (composite) to create something new. Using virtual pipe organ technology to create an audio 'backup' of an instrument is a personal passion, and so Graham hopes to be recording and creating sample sets of many organs in the years to come.
Graham studied at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication. He later attended Rhodes University in
Grahamstown, South Africa, and graduated with a postgraduate Bachelor of Divinity in Pastoral Theology. He then worked as a minister in the Uniting Presbyterian Church in South Africa for the next five years. While his interest in the pipe organ only developed much later, he now enjoys having fun playing the virtual theatre organ as well as playing church/classical organs.
