As part of the media promotion for the Snowbelt/MBSI Mechanical Melodies
rally in St. Paul, MN, on Sunday, May 19, we played a Bursens 68-key
street organ on a live television broadcast on Friday, May 17.  Almanac
is a live weekly current events program produced in the studios of Twin
Cities Public Television in St. Paul.  The program occurred near the end
of the Minnesota legislative session and included visits to the studio
of Governor Jesse Ventura and the leaders of the Minnesota Senate and
House in addition to our organ.  The entire program and selected clips
can be downloaded from the Twin Cities Public Television web site at
http://www.tpt.org/almanac/ .

In addition to us spending most of the day moving the organ in and
out of the studio, lighting and sound technicians spent three hours
adjusting the straw lighting in front to bring out the gold leaf, blue
lights at the sides to illuminate the blue drum bodies and additional
lights at the rear.  A high quality stereo microphone was positioned
approximately 10 feet in front of the organ.  A boom camera shot
overhead views in addition to hand-held cameras.  Most of the panels
on the organ case were removed to show the inner components as much as
possible.

Two books arranged and punched by Tom Meier were played: "Tiger Rag"
and the "Theme from Star Wars", as "Attack of the Clones" had opened
the day before.  We brought several books of music to play but once the
producer heard the Star Wars Theme, we were told to play that as the
major piece.

It is unusual for a large mechanical musical instrument to appear on
a television show.  We certainly wowed the studio crew and attracted
many more visitors to the rally because of our appearance.  I want to
acknowledge Mike Merrick, who made most of the arrangements with the
producer, and Tracy Tolzmann, our PR specialist, who rounded out the
organ moving crew.

Tom Kuehn

 [ This URL retrieves the entire show:
 [ http://video1.tpt.org:8080/ramgen/almanac/show/1786.rm
 [ Use this URL to retrieve the program when the street organ plays:
 [ http://video1.tpt.org:8080/ramgen/almanac/show/1786.rm?start=38:43
 [ -- Robbie