The "Continental Superstar" is a dance hall at the Jubelpark Museum
(Musée du Cinquantenaire) in Brussels where you can enjoy dance organs,
fairground organs and domestic instruments that will be displayed from
9 October 2008 to 8 March 2009.

The instruments are from the former Jef Ghysels collection which was
purchased in 2007 by Flemish Minister for Culture, Bert Anciaux, and
is now presented to the public at large at the Royal Museums for Art
and History.  In the course of next year a final destination will be
decided for this collection.  Apart from the musical instruments,
dozens of statuettes and documents are displayed and there is also
a bar with a small buffet.

The café and domestic instruments include a large orchestrion by
Theophiel Mortier (Antwerp, 1928), a player piano by Pierre Eich
from Ghent, an Aeolian Orchestrelle reed organ and a Piano Melodico by
Giovanni Racca.  The street and fairground organs were built by famous
names such as Hooghuys, Bursens, Vander Beken, Bruder and Gröseling.
The collection also includes two barrel pianos.  The four impressive
dance organs were built by Mortier (80 key from 1905 and 92 key
"Continental Superstar" from 1923), by Eusèbe Fasano (78 key from 1912)
and by Decap (121 key "Frangema" from 1946).

Pictures of some of these instruments can be found in Ord-Hume's
"Automatic organs" (Schiffer books, 2007) on pages 49 (Fasano),
page 51 (Mortier's "Continental Superstar") and page 55 (orchestrion
Mortier), where they are quite erroneously described as belonging to
a "Dutch preservation society".

Thanks to the extensive collection of organ books and rolls, the
"Continental Superstar" guarantees hours of mechanical music
entertainment.  The instruments will be playing each day from
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. (closed on Mondays).  Admission with museum ticket:
Euro 5 / 4 / 1.5.  More information at the forthcoming web site at
http://www.continentalsuperstar.be/ or tel. +32 2 741 72 11 or email
info@kmkg-mrah.be.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply].

Hope to see y'all on the continent!
Jo Santy
tel.: +32 2 741 74 47

 [ At http://www.rvi.be/rvi_master/insite/rvi_insite_dansorgel/index.shtml 
 [ curator Jo Santy praises the acquisition of the collection, saying
 [ "Several pieces in the collection may be called masterpieces.  That
 [ is not obvious because in the art world hearing music quickly raises
 [ the eyebrows -- the title is usually reserved for paintings such as by
 [ [Belgian expressionist painter James] Ensor...  Well, this collection
 [ also deserves the title 'toperfgoed'."  -- Robbie