Duke Chapel Organ to Be Dedicated at Recital Feb. 8
Monday, January 26, 2009
A Duke Chapel organ concert on Sunday, Feb. 8, will celebrate the return of the chapel’s newly reconditioned Aeolian organ.
The event, free and open to the public, starts at 4 p.m. It will include a dedication of the instrument as the Kathleen Upton Byrns McClendon Organ in honor of a $600,000 gift that McClendon and her husband Aubrey made for this project in 2003. The McClendons, who participated in Duke Chapel activities while undergraduates at Duke, also gave $800,000 to support a new organ in the Duke Divinity School’s Goodson Chapel, as part of a $6 million gift to the university in 2005.
The organ recital will feature performances by University Organist Robert Parkins and Chapel Organist David Arcus, with works by Brahms, Franck, Gigout, Locklair, Tournemire, Howells, Sowerby and others.
“The Aeolian organ has begun a new chapter,” Arcus said. “This organ -- long-known and well-loved by university alums, officials and friends the world over -- has emerged from its ‘sabbatical’ restored, renewed, refreshed and revived.”
The Aeolian organ is the chapel’s original organ, installed in 1932 in the area around the altar space. Reconditioning the organ took 20 months, at a total cost of $2.2 million. Major work included replacing the more-than-70-year-old console with a replica by Richard Houghten of Milan, Mich.
Thousands of worn-out leather parts also were replaced, greatly improving the reliability and longevity of the organ. The nearly 7,000 pipes were thoroughly cleaned and repaired; their voice was returned to the original 1930s-era sound, which had changed over the decades. Foley-Baker, Inc., of Tolland, Conn., carried out the restoration.
