THE NEW ORGAN: Update
The Organ Development Project has made huge progress over the summer months and we are delighted that the organ has now been installed in the Princess Hall. Over the next couple of weeks the finishing touche
s will be carried out, which include fine adjustments to some of the pipes.
The instrument looks and sounds magnificent, and we were thrilled to hear it played by Mr Roy Raby during opening prayers at the beginning of term. As you can see from the pictures the organ designers at Kenneth Tickell have been highly sensitive to the organ’s surroundings and have designed it to integrate perfectly into the PH. Even after such a small amount of time it’s hard to imagine the PH without the organ!
Mr Raby says: “The new Kenneth Tickell organ is wonderful, both visually and musically. No one could really envisage how it would look but to many 'it looks as though it has always been there'. The quality of workmanship is outstanding with such attention to detail that it stands up to the closest scrutiny. The quality of wood and carving are superb with influences taken from College motifs. The console, the flight deck, as it were, is one of the most comfortable to sit at and the responsive touch of the key action has already had both organ staff and girls in raptures. Each individual stop has a wonderful 
character all of its own and we are gradually exploring what the organ is capable of in terms of repertoire and volume needed for various occasions. It stills needs time to settle down and there may well be an occasional blip during this period but it is already creating a lot of interest: the Annual Conference of British Organ builders visits in October to see it in action and a Young Organists' event is booked for next April in conjunction with the Royal College of Organists. The prestigious Oundle Organ Course will also use the instrument. This is just the beginning. We have nine or ten girls learning the organ at CLC so this is the start of a very exciting period for the Music Department and College as a whole.”
We are extremely grateful to the 302 donors who contributed to this project; we raised a splendid £304,732.39 which enabled us to purchase the 3 manual instrument. A launch party is planned for March 2007 at which we are honoured to welcome Dame Gillian Weir to play for us. An honours board acknowledging the donors will also be revealed at the launch. If you would like to support this project and have your name on the board then it’s not too late as we are still receiving contributions. All you need to do is click the link below for a donation form.
We thought that it might be of interest to share some of the facts and figures about the organ…….
Pipes
There are 2342 pipes in all, of which 304 are reed pipes and 211 are wooden pipes. Pipes range in size from 16 feet (4.9 metres) to small treble pipes which are smaller than a pencil.
Materials
The organ is made predominantly of European Oak, from the Czech Republic. The wooden pipes are made of Czech Pine, and the soundboards of American Poplar. Other special woods such as Cedar, Hornbeam and Maple are used within the mechanical action.
Other materials used are tin and lead for the metal pipes, aluminium and brass for parts within the mechanism, bone and ebony for the keyboard coverings and stop knobs, and felt and leather for the bellows and soundboards.
Hours
The design time for the organ was approximately 300 hours and approximately 10,500 hours work was carried out by the company who made the organ. (This does not include hours worked by others, such as the metal pipemakers.)
Manpower
There are currently ten full time staff working for Kennth Tickell. All have had some involvement with the project, seven of whom have worked in detail.
Weight
The estimated weight of the organ is around 7 tons.
Stops
There are 33 speaking stops:
Great manual - 7 stops; Choir manual - 8 stops; Swell manual - 11 stops;
Pedal organ - 7 stops; and also couplers, tremulants etc.
Size
The organ is 6.2 metres wide, 4 metres deep, 5.2 metres high
Other information
The casework was designed by Kenneth Tickell
Technical design by Kenneth Tickell & Tomas Jansky
Voicing by Simon Brown and David Frostick
Tonal finishing by Simon Brown and Tomas Jansky
Casework, soundboards, actions and wooden pipes by Barry Plummer, Tomas Jansky, Gary Stone, Joe Glenham, Tim Pipkin, Frank Reader.
The metal pipes were made by Shires Organ Pipes of Leeds.
The pipeshades were carved by Keith German of Lyndale Woodcarving,
Heacham, Norfolk
