March 12, 2007FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ron Regier, Managing Director
Performing Arts Center
(805) 756-6557 rregier@calpoly.edu
PAC Pulling Out All Stops for Forbes Pipe Organ Debut June 11, 13
SAN LUIS OBISPO − The Performing Arts Center and a prominent guest organist from France will “pull out all the stops” for concert performances in June to premiere the magnificent new Forbes Pipe Organ in Harman Hall.
Not just a phrase for “making every possible effort,” in this case “pulling out the stops” actually means using controls on the organ to regulate air flow and create a bigger sound from the pipes. The glorious music will be debuted on the Forbes Pipe Organ June 11 and 13 by Todd Wilson.
Tickets will go on sale Monday, March 19, for the Wednesday, June 13 concert featuring performances by Wilson with the San Luis Obispo Symphony and a community chorus, conducted by Michael Nowak and Thomas Davies. The concert will present Bach’s “Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor,” “Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani in G Minor” by Francis Poulenc, and “Requiem, Opus 9” by Maurice Duruflé.
A limited number of tickets for a free recital by Latry on Monday, June 11, will be available starting Monday, April 2, at the PAC ticket office. Latry will perform works by Bach, Berlioz, Rachmaninov and others, as well as do some improvising of his own. For information, phone (805) 756-2787, or go online to www.pacslo.org.
Members of the community will also have a turn at “pulling out the stops” during an open keyboard session 1 p.m., Sunday, June 17. Sign-ups will be taken in May for free 10-minute opportunities to play the Forbes Pipe Organ.
Anyone who has been to Harman Hall lately can’t miss the gleaming silver pipes reaching three stories near a corner of the stage. The Forbes Pipe Organ has 2,762 pipes that range in size from a pencil to 32-feet. That makes for a lot of stops to pull.
For those who are interested in learning more, staff from legendary organ builder C.B Fisk will discuss their design and construction of the Forbes Pipe Organ at a brown-bag lecture and demonstration, noon to 1:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 12.
Generous financial contributions by local philanthropists Bert and Candace Forbes paid for the Opus 129 organ and brought it to the Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo from C.B. Fisk’s plant in Gloucester, Mass.
C.B. Fisk was established in 1961 by Charles B. Fisk, a man with an extraordinary aptitude in physics and a love for music. He was the first American organ builder to abandon the electro-pneumatic action of the early 20th century and return to the mechanical (tracker) key and stop action of historical instruments.
The Fisk firm has built the largest organs in the United States in this century at Harvard University and the House of Hope Church in St. Paul, Minn., as well a number of other instruments based on historical organs in Europe and the U.S.
“For the Performing Arts Center and the local community, it is a distinct honor to have one of these immense, complex and beautiful instruments to call our own,” said PAC Managing Director Ron Regier.
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