The booming sound of an organ is an expectation for services held at the Washington National Cathedral. But the cathedral’s nearly century-old pipe organ has seen better days and is set for a massive four-year renovation.
The cathedral was only a third built when the great pipe organ was designed. It was installed in 1938 by the Ernest M. Skinner and Son Organ Company.
“The organ sounds great because the room makes it sound terrific, but look, the organ now only probably 50% of it to 60% of it actually works. So much of it [has] been shut down,” said Canon Michael McCarthy, director of music at the cathedral, told WTOP.
For about 15 years, he says they’ve been boosting the music through a connected digital organ so it reaches the nave.
The organ has undergone a few “expansions and patches” in the 1970s and 1990s which have gotten it through an estimated 30,000 services.
However, there have been times the instrument has run into issues and stopped working the night before major events like presidential funerals, McCarthy said, calling those moments “really scary.”
Thanks to $12.5 million in donations, renovations are scheduled to begin in January by Foley-Baker, which Cathedral staff said previously worked to restore Duke University Chapel, The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, and Boston Symphony Hall.
“So it’s basically going to go where the footprint is now, which is up at a higher level of the cathedral. And embedded back into what we call the triforia level, this is the third level of a gothic cathedral,” McCarthy said. “The organ will be situated similarly but laid out in a much more efficient way that allows the sound to speak into the building.”
The process of renovation will take about four years. An electric organ will serve to temporarily meet the cathedral’s needs. One of the more time-consuming aspects will be voicing the pipes.
“Once we get it all back in, there are about eight-and-a-half thousand pipes coming back in. Each of those pipes — when you have a new organ — has to get tailored specifically,” McCarthy said.
“They call it voicing so it actually is the most efficient in the space. It takes about three months to do that, just going around the organ.”
Renovation of the organ at the cathedral has been funded through the “A Cathedral for the Future” campaign, whose aim is to raise $150 million for renovation and improvement projects, which include the completion of repairs after the 2011 earthquake and the opening of the renovated Virginia Mae Center.
Currently, the campaign has raised $131 million of its $150 million goal.
Watch a video demonstrating how the organ works:
