Hello, I just wanted to bring the restoration of Big Bertha to the
attention of the mechanical music community. Big Bertha is a Limonaire
fairground organ that was part of the Paul Eakins collection until
Disney bought the collection. Big Bertha is currently located in the
1900 Park Fare restaurant at the Grand Floridian Resort in Walt Disney
World in Orlando, Florida.
I went to 1900 Park Fare restaurant in June 2014 during my Disney
vacation to try it out and to see Big Bertha for the first time. Sadly,
she did not sound good at all and she needed restoration terribly.
I had requested to hear her play then because I never heard her play
in person, but the cast members were reluctant to have her play for
that reason. It is such a shame she was not restored for years, until
I had heard her play without request in June 2017 and she sounded so
much better.
Another thing I noticed since her restoration between 2016-2017 is
that she no longer played on paper rolls, but now plays on MIDI files
-- some is Disney music, some not Disney music -- and she is still
improving on her restoration progress to this day. I had to bring
attention to this beautiful musical gem of Walt Disney World.
By the way, my good friend Andrew Lardieri had identified the tune
playing in the second recording in the video I made. Here is the link
to my YouTube video I made about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4qmSW553gw
Cassidy Juraniec
New Jersey
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