Now that the much-anticipated Forbes Pipe Organ is functional and shining in the PAC, it is ready to see some action.
First up is the Forbes Pipe Organ Recital Series. Kicking it off Oct. 7 at 3 p.m. in Harman Hall/Christopher Cohan Center is James Welch, a Santa Clara University music department professor and experienced organist. The show is sponsored by Cal Poly and Performing Arts Center supporters Bert and Candace Forbes as well as the Foundation for the Performing Arts Center.
Included in the performance program are two key organ pieces recognized worldwide, Bach’s “Prelude and Fugue in G major” and Charles-Marie Widor’s “Toccata from Symphony No. 5.”
Welch joined the Santa Clara music department in 1993 after receiving a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance from Stanford University and teaching at UC Santa Barbara.
Welch has performed internationally at renowned venues such as the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. and the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. He has also played and taught in Beijing, Taipei, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Jerusalem.
A pre-concert lecture with Welch will be held in the Philips Recital Hall at 2 p.m.
Tickets for the performance range from $14 to $26; student discounts are available on all seats.
Other events to include the Forbes organ are a showing of the 1925 silent horror version of “The Phantom of the Opera” Oct. 13 at 7:30 p.m. with 96-year-old organist Bob Michell accompanying the film; and the Cal Poly Choirs’ Debut Concert on Oct. 27 at 8 p.m. with Cal Poly organist Paul Woodring and PholyPhonics, The University Singers and the Early Music Ensemble, in addition to barbershop quartets and soloists.
Rebecca Adams, a second-year psychology student, sang with the organ during its debut performances in a series of concerts in June and will also sing in the Choirs’ Debut Concert.
“It was really fun to sing with,” said Adams. “It was very gorgeous and very different than the piano, which we usually sing with.”
The mechanical action (tracker action) organ, which soars more than 30 feet high and weighs around six tons, took the Massachusetts-based company C.B. Fisk more than 22,000 hours and 30 employees to build. It was the 129th instrument the company had made.
Though the actual production was close to a year, the actual project started nearly 12 years later than expected, as the organ budget went toward the construction of Harman Hall.
Project manager Andrew Gingery said that the organ, a gift from the Forbes, cost more than $1 million to construct.
Consisting of two levels of nearly 2,800 pipes of various shapes and sizes, the organ makes woodwind-like sounds such as those of a flute, oboe, and clarinet. Flat wooden panels that encase some of the pipes behind glass walls open and close, controlling the sounds produced by a single key.
Paul Woodring, who has a bachelor of science from Cal State Northridge in organ-playing, coaches the Cal Poly choirs and was on the design committee for the organ.
“It’s like a Ferrari,” said Woodring. “It’s a superb instrument with such a lively sound and potential to cover a wide range of musical possibilities.”
“It doesn’t come out of a factory. It has lots of design features to integrate the organ with the rest of [Harman Hall].”
Over the summer, a number of local residents signed up for a chance to play the organ for 15 minutes – five to accustom themselves to the peculiar instrument and its three-tiered keyboard and pedals, then 10 to play a specific composition.
To purchase tickets for any of the shows, visit the Performing Arts Ticket Office between 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. They are also available by phone at (805) 756-2787, by fax through (805) 756-6088, and online at www.pacslo.org.