Concert Hall Organ Returns to Renovated Alice Tully Hall
June 14, 2010
Weighing 19 tons in total and consisting of a maze of nearly 4,200 pipes that need to be put back together after years in storage, pieces of the city's only concert pipe organ were emptied on Monday from two semi-trailer trucks parked outside the newly rebuilt Alice Tully Hall, which reopened last year."Even after we reopened the hall, there's still lots of work to be done there. It takes a while for the dust to settle, literally to settle," said John Tiebout, Lincoln Center's director of concert halls and operations. This is a very sensitive instrument and we don't want it fouled with sawdust or metal filings."
The organ was taken apart in 2006 and put into storage upstate. During that time, it was cleaned and polished and the pipes were returned to their true sound.
Now the organ must be put back together. The company from Switzerland that built the organ in the 1970s is in town for the summer to do just that.
"In the next two months, we are just installing the organ case, the mechanics and technical part of the organ," said organ designer and builder Claude Lardon. "Afterwards, there's another six weeks when all the pipes are going to be installed, and each pipe has to be adjusted so it sounds right, because the acoustics of the hall are different than before."
The organ will be rededicated in November during Lincoln Center's White Light Festival. Paul Jacobs, the chairman of Julliard's Organ Department, will be performing.
Concert Hall Organ Returns to Renovated Alice Tully Hall
NY1 News
reported by Kristen Shaughnessy
