Famous Tabernacle organ featured in program
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"The Mormon Tabernacle Organ: An American Classic" is the title of a program being distributed this month to public radio stations nationwide.
The program, produced by KBYU-FM, was initially broadcast on the BYU-owned radio station Nov. 14 and rebroadcast on Thanksgiving Day.Interested listeners should contact their local public radio stations for dates and times of the broadcast, said Susan H. Young, manager of development and public information for KBYU-FM.
Concert performances by Tabernacle organists Robert Cundick, John Long-hurst and Clay Christiansen, and by Robert Glasgow and Thomas Murray are featured in the program. The performances and interviews included are from the American Classic Organ Symposium last January in Salt Lake City.
The symposium consisted of a series of concerts and lectures commemorating the organ's 40th anniversary and completion of the instrument's four-year renovation which took place from 1984 to 1988.
Considered by many to be the most famous pipe organ in the world, the organ has been a part of more than 2,000 broadcasts of "Music and the Spoken Word," thousands of solo recitals and numerous recordings since it was installed in 1948.
Since its dedication in 1867, the Tabernacle has had a pipe organ, and over the years a series of different organs has served the building as musical needs evolved and pipe organ technology advanced. The current instrument was built by Aeolian-Skinner Organ Co. of Boston, Mass.
G. Donald Harrison, one of the great names in organ building history, was president and tonal director of Aeolian-Skinner, when the Tabernacle organ was built. Harrison was responsible for many important organs constructed in the United States between 1930 and the mid-1950s. The 1948 Tabernacle Organ is considered to be the foremost example of his "American Classic" style.
