Photo by Pau Jaronski, U-M Photo Services
|
The University of Michigan |
The famed E. M. Skinner/Æolian-Skinner organ in Hill Auditorium is available to University of Michigan students and faculty for teaching, practice and performances. The organ, named in honor of Henry Simmons Frieze, Professor of Latin and first president of the University Musical Society, is the focal point of the auditorium's unique parabolic interior. Behind the façade of non-speaking pipes are 120 ranks plus an additional 4 ranks in the Echo division above the central skylight, totaling 7,599 speaking pipes.
Twelve of these ranks date back to the organ built by the Farrand & Votey Company in 1893 for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago and moved to University Hall at the University of Michigan in 1894. Hill Auditorium was designed by architect Albert Kahn and constructed in 1913 through the bequest of University of Michigan Regent Arthur Hill. Shortly after its completion, the Hutchings Organ Company rebuilt the Frieze Memorial Organ and moved it to Hill Auditorium. In 1927, Professor Palmer Christian directed a major reworking of the organ by the renowned American organbuilder Ernest M. Skinner, who created a characteristically "orchestral" tonal design. The aesthetics of organ design changed radically in the ensuing decades, and in 1955, G. Donald Harrison of the Æolian-Skinner Company was commissioned to rebuild the organ to reflect the "American classic" ideal.
Former university organ technician Samuel Koontz conducted a restoration of the organ's mechanism in 1985. Further restoration by Nelson Barden and Company was necessary after the organ sustained water damage from a leaking roof in 1990. Jerroll Adams, the university's current organ technician, rebuilt the console in 1995 to incorporate digital circuitry and solid-state components. The colors and configuration of the non-speaking façade pipes have been changed several times over the years. The current façade design dates from a major renovation of the auditorium in 2003-04.
Professor James O. Wilkes has conducted extensive research into the Hill Auditorium organ and has published a detailed account in Pipe Organs of Ann Arbor, available from the Organ Historical Society (www.ohscatalog.com). "Merrily on Hill," a compact disk of Christmas organ music, has been recorded on the instrument by James Kibbie, Professor of Organ at the University of Michigan.
|
Hill Auditorium, Farrand & Votey Organ
Company, Hutchings Organ
Company, Skinner Organ
Company, Æolian-Skinner
Organ Company,
Great (61 notes): Swell (61 notes,
enclosed): Positiv (61
notes): Choir (61 notes,
enclosed): |
with the façade as it appreared prior to renovation in 2003-04 Photo by Keary Campbell
Solo (61 notes,
enclosed): Echo (61 notes,
enclosed): Pedal (32 notes): |
© 2006 by James Kibbie. All rights reserved
contact:
James Kibbie
The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2085
Email:
jkibbie@umich.edu
Voice: 734-764-1591
FAX: 734-763-5097
