NORWAY – The sounds of the First Universalist Church’s musical heritage will be heard Sunday during a public concert to mark the restoration of the historic church organ and its benefactors, both past and present.

The concert begins at 3 p.m. in the church sanctuary at 479 Main St.

Organizers say it is planned not only to show off the restored organ but to honor the legacy of the woman who presented the instrument to the church and those present-day members and others in the community whose donations allowed the restoration.

“It was 10 years ago I came up with the idea to have the organ fixed,” Nancy Wood said. A member of the organ committee, she helped raise the first $7,000 through a bottle drive. She and the committee continued to oversee raising another $13,000 from the church and greater Norway community to complete the restoration.

Organ restoration expert John Gass of Holden spent the better part of last year repairing the instrument, that along with a Steinway grand piano has been a focal point of the church service for many years. Sunday’s performers will include Gass, Phil House, Grace Lewis-McLaren and Jim Burke

The Aeolian Skinner Pipe organ was presented to the church in 1937 by Norway resident Sarah Maude Kaemmerling, whose legacy was to make gifts of long-lasting value to churches, colleges and even the Girl Scouts throughout Maine and beyond.

Pat Shearman, who researched the files of the Norway Historical Society to find out information about Kaemmerling, said the benefactor and her family built a summer home on Rock Island in Lake Pennesseewassee. Not only did she present the First Universalist Church its organ, but she also funded the construction of the Norway Memorial Library, a medical laboratory for the local hospital and she even donated her grandparent’s home to the church. Kaemmerling was a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and later taught there.

The organ replaced a Stevens organ, built by local organ builders in the 1800s, that had been housed in the rear balcony of the sanctuary. Some of the organ’s historic architecture, such as the existing pipe chamber and the front facade case work, are believed to be remnants of the early organ, according to church member Cynthia Seavey, who wrote a history of the organ.

Seavey said the old organ was dismantled in 1937, and the church chose an Aeolian Skinner for the replacement. The two companies had merged about that time as a way to blend the Aeolian company piping with the keyboard and pedal board of the Skinner organ. It was this company that named the organ the Marie Antoinette Aeolian Skinner organ after the wife of French leader Louis Antoinette XVI.

Sunday’s program will be a celebration of the organ and its benefactor but also a nod to the church’s Steinway grand piano, whose rich history rivals that of the organ.

“We’re very fortunate,” said Sallie Nealand, the church office manager.

The Steinway grand piano that sits on a rise above the organ was purchased by local author C.A. Stephens for his wife Madam Scalar, an internationally known opera singer, in 1898. Later it was bequeathed by the Stephens family to local music teacher Bess Klein who bequeathed it to the church.

“We love the piano, too,” Nealand said.