Wanamaker Organ

The Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, in Philadelphia, is the largest pipe organ in the world, based on number of ranks and physical mass weight. The Wanamaker Organ is located within a spacious 7-story Grand Court at Macy's Center City and is played twice a day Monday through Saturday. The organ is featured at several special concerts held throughout the year, including events featuring the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ Festival Chorus and Brass Ensemble.

The Wanamaker Organ is a concert organ of the American Symphonic school of design, which combines traditional organ tone with the sonic colors of the symphony orchestra. In its present configuration, the Wanamaker Organ has 28,750 pipes in 464 ranks. The organ console consists of six manuals with an array of stops and controls that command the organ. The organ's String Division forms the largest single organ chamber in the world. The instrument features eighty-eight ranks of string pipes built to Wanamaker specifications by the W.W. Kimball Company of Chicago. The organ is famed for its orchestra-like sound, coming from pipes that are voiced softer than usual, allowing an unusually rich build-up because of the massing of pipe-tone families. The organ was also built and enlarged as an "art organ," using exquisite craftsmanship and lavish application of materials to create a luxury product. There is a minimum of borrowing and unification in its disciplined design. The Wanamaker Store maintained its own organ factory to ensure an ultra-high-grade result. The artistic obligation entailed by the creation of this instrument has always been honored, with two curators employed in its constant and scrupulous care .This dedication was enhanced when corporate parentage shifted from the Wanamaker family to Carter Hawley Hale Stores followed by Woodward & Lothrop, The May Department Stores Company, and Lord & Taylor. When the space was occupied by Macy's and with the founding of the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ with its input of outside capital, an aggressive restoration schedule developed and is still maintained. Current restoration efforts are a combination of Macy's expenditures and significant contributions by Friends of the Wanamaker Organ, a 5013 non-profit dedicated to the instrument.

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