The links in the post about the organ at Scotty's Castle go to American
Public Radio's "Pipe Dreams" show, and from there one can journey to
the listing of all of their shows. And from there you can visit a
listing of every organ that they've ever had a show about.
And one of these is the famed E. M. Skinner organ at Severance Hall in
Cleveland, with its zillions of pipes, placed on a stage that extends
back, like, 100 yards. This is especially interesting to me because
I logged what felt like ninety years of my childhood in Severance
Hall and never laid eyes on the thing. I mean, the shape of the stage
proscenium looks right, but where the heck did the organ and that
science-fiction stage-thing it lives in come from?
So I read the text. Surprise: the organ had been mothballed (in back of
an acoustical shell that George Szell put in about 1958) until about five
years ago. Schantz Organ Co. just restored the organ and rebuilt the
stage, so now I've gotta go see it. There's also a fascinating if
slightly blurry slide show of the restoration there. Apparently the
instrument was sort of stuffed into the attic of the concert hall.
http://www.schantzorgan.com/w-new/ArchiveListing.cfm?Selection=20
Mark Kinsler - Nobody ever tells me anything.
Lancaster, Ohio, USA
http://www.mkinsler.com/
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