Behind the Scenes at BU: The John R. Silber Symphonic Organ
Behind the Scenes at BU: The John R. Silber Symphonic Organ
Behind the Scenes at BU: The John R. Silber Symphonic Organ
The Metcalf Ballroom at the George Sherman Union plays host to a variety of events year round—conferences, dinners, galas, the University’s annual holiday party for faculty and staff, award ceremonies, and more. And hidden in plain sight next to the 12,000-square-foot ballroom on the GSU second floor is a one-of-a-kind musical instrument so massive that it needs its own very large room. Soaring 30 feet high, weighing in at a whopping 22.5 tons, and featuring 7,500 pipes, the John R. Silber Symphonic Organ is like no other organ in the world.
The “guts” of the organ live one flight of stairs above the ballroom, on display in a long hallway behind large glass windows.
The symphonic organ is the product of an extensive restoration by Nelson Barden & Associates that took 12 years to complete. Powered by six enormous vintage turbines, totaling 33 horsepower, in an adjacent room, the organ is actually two early 20th-century player organs (instruments that play automatically without instruments) fused into one. The first is a 12-rank 1930 Skinner, Opus 764, which originally belonged to Percy A. Rockefeller; it was donated to the University in 1981 by John R. Robinson, then secretary of the BU Board of Trustees. The second instrument, donated by former University trustee chairman Arthur G. B. Metcalf (Wheelock’35, Hon.’74), is a 23-rank 1930 Aeolian, Opus 1783, built for Boston candymaker William E. Schrafft. It was Metcalf who came up with the idea to merge the two organs into one magnificent instrument. Originally operated by punched paper rolls, the organ is now operated by a complex computer system that was installed in the early 1980s. It was named in honor of John Silber (Hon.’95), BU’s seventh president.
A devoted enthusiast of symphony orchestras, Metcalf had a vision: to fill the Metcalf Ballroom with the sound of cymbals, cellos, flutes, tubas, chimes, harps, and more. That never came to pass, but on the rare occasions the organ is fired up these days, the sound emanating from the glassed-in chambers housing it is magnificent. Close your eyes and you can imagine that you’re sitting in a concert hall, listening to the lush sounds of a symphony orchestra.
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