The Friends of the Wanamaker have recently arranged a series of weekly concerts played by resident organist Peter Conte, celebrating the 10th year of Organ Month in Philly, which are also available on YouTube. Great watching and listening!
What? No applause? Is this a Wanamaker thing or is there just nobody there?
I've been listening for the last couple of hours. It's a great place to get ideas! For example, I never knew Debussy's 2nd Arabesque had an organ arrangement. Now I need to find it on IMSLP! Pirates too!
Michael
Way too many organs to list, but I do have 5 Allens:
These recordings were made after the store closed for the day. You can see that the retail areas of the store are dark. I designed the new lighting for the console and the facade so they could be turned back on after the store energy management system darkened the rest of the store at the end of the sales day.
The organist actually has a little hinged control panel (like the swing-out toy counter buttons on some theater organs) to control the console lights and change the color of the facade lights.
Peter Conte asked me to create that system after he played at the Mormon Tabernacle and learned that the organist could change the color of the ceiling lighting behind the organ pipes. The late assistant curator Sam Whitcraft built the control panel to match the console and I did the wiring and programming. I had already installed the white-red-green-blue theatrical lighting for the Christmas Light Show that also doubled as the pipe facade lighting so it wasn't a lot of extra work.
WOW! Larry. Some of us would kill for that opportunity! The only time I've seen the Wanamaker organ I wasn't even allowed to touch it. Some big guy (400+ lbs.) was perched on the bench.
What? No applause? Is this a Wanamaker thing or is there just nobody there?
Not sure if it's a COVID thing or they were recorded after hours.
I've been listening for the last couple of hours. It's a great place to get ideas! For example, I never knew Debussy's 2nd Arabesque had an organ arrangement. Now I need to find it on IMSLP! Pirates too!
That organ certainly manages big orchestral pieces beautifully. It will be wonderful when the Boardwalk organ is fully functional, too.
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Wanamaker Weekly Concerts
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