Organ
A Compton Organ was specially designed for the Civic Hall and it is believed that the console was designed by the architects. The organ was made up of over 5,500 pipes and contained an early electronic division known as a Melotone. G. D. Cunningham, then Birmingham City Organist, had the distinction of being the first musician to play there. Two Borough Organists have served Wolverhampton at the Civic Hall, Arnold Richardson (1938–1973) and Steve Tovey (1991–present), the latter becoming City Organist in 2001.
The Organ was also re-built and enlarged in 2001, and is now capable of being played as a cathedral organ or theatre organ. Regular classical and theatre organ concerts are still held. Steve Tovey gives a brief demonstration of the civic hall organ
Read more about this topic: Wolverhampton Civic Hall
Famous quotes containing the word organ:
“And this mighty master of the organ of language, who knew its every stop and pipe, who could awaken at will the thin silver tones of its slenderest reeds or the solemn cadence of its deepest thunder, who could make it sing like a flute or roar like a cataract, he was born into a country without literature.”
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“In that reconciling of God and Mammon which Mrs. Grantly had carried on so successfully in the education of her daughter, the organ had not been required, and had become withered, if not defunct, through want of use.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)