After a worldwide search that ended in July 2001, a team of MSO staff, board members and acousticians selected Orgelbau Klais in Bonn, Germany, to build the Overture Concert Organ.
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The Overture Concert Organ consists of 63 stops, 72 ranks and 4,040 pipes, the tallest of which is 32 feet and the heaviest weighing in at more than 1,200 pounds. The organ took nearly three years to design and build. Including its unique movable chamber, the organ weighs in at 174 tons and is believed to be the heaviest movable object in any
theater in the world.
Learn more.The MSO's Overture Concert Organ arrived in pieces on five semi-trucks in early March 2004.
Learn more.View the Overture Concert Organ Stop List and Specifications and learn more about this extraordinary instrument
here.If you stacked all the organ pipes end to end, they would reach 1.58 miles or 8,342 feet, the height of almost 6 Empire State Buildings!
Learn more.Samuel Hutchison is the Principal Organist and Curator for the Madison Symphony Orchestra's Overture Concert Organ. He plays the 72-rank instrument built by Orgelbau Klais of Bonn, Germany. His position as the Wayne Curtis & Maybelle Slavens Hall and Francis Vincent & Lettie von Kalweit Dunnebacke Curator is endowed by an anonymous donor.
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