Wanamaker Organ

The division features eighty-eight ranks of string pipes built to Wanamaker specifications by the W.W. Kimball Company of Chicago.

[5] 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 artistic obligation entailed by the creation of this instrument has always been honored, with two curators employed in its constant and scrupulous care (which leads to its status as one of the best maintained organ in the world).

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 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to the instrument.

In addition to its console, the organ was originally equipped with an automatic player that used punched rolls of paper, according to the Los Angeles Times of 1904.

Although the organ's debut was scheduled for May 1, official fair organist and St. Louis local Charles Henry Galloway did not give his opening recital until June 9.

The organ languished in storage at the Handlan warehouse in St. Louis until 1909, when it was bought by John Wanamaker for his new department store at 13th and Market Streets in Center City, Philadelphia.

For these events Wanamaker's opened a Concert Bureau under Alexander Russell and brought to America master organists Marcel Dupré and Louis Vierne, Nadia Boulanger, Marco Enrico Bossi, Alfred Hollins, and several others.

During his first recital on the organ, Dupré was so impressed with the instrument that he was inspired to improvise a musical depiction of the life of Jesus Christ.

During this project, the organ's current console was constructed in Wanamaker's private in-house pipe-organ factory, with six manuals and several hundred controls.

The Philadelphia Orchestra returned to the Grand Court on September 27, 2008, for the premiere performance of Joseph Jongen's Symphonie Concertante (1926) on the organ for which it was written.

The ticketed event, featuring soloist Peter Richard Conte, also included the Bach/Stokowski arrangement of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Marcel Dupré's Cortege and Litany for Organ and Orchestra, and the world premiere of a Fanfare by Howard Shore, composer for The Lord of the Rings films.

[11] In 2019 the Wanamaker Organ facade, designed by Daniel Hudson Burnham, was restored and re-gilded in 22-karat gold to a color scheme close in sympathy to its original appearance but which fits in with its new surroundings.

Grant money from Macy's and several Philadelphia area charities funded this project, which was overseen by the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ.