Indiana, last year.
The new traveling exhibit won’t be ready until next year, but will be
interactive and will include a mobile app that will superimpose computergenerated images of Johnny Appleseed telling his own story.
a new pipe organ for the
cathedral
Graham Bier, Director of Music,
Bryn Athyn Church
Pipe organs have a long association with the
Church. Each instrument is different, designed
to suit the building and acoustics where it will
spend its life. Letters from almost a century
ago show that Raymond Pitcairn had a great
concern for the design of a pipe organ for the
Bryn Athyn Cathedral. Many of these letters
were to and from the E. M. Skinner Organ
Company, quickly becoming known as the
Graham Bier, Director of Music, with
foremost American organ builder of that time.
the Cathedral's new pipe organ
Plans for an instrument worthy of the
building were approaching final drafts when
the United States entered World War I and
plans were put on hold. A “temporary” smaller
organ was purchased from Skinner; although
correspondence about replacing it with the
original full-size plans continued, for various
reasons, it never came to fruition.
This is by way of underlining the
significance of the installation this summer
of a restored 1920s Skinner organ in the Bryn
Organ builder Charles Kegg
Athyn Cathedral. In 2012, Frederick Haas
proposed this organ as a gift through the Wyncote Foundation in memory
of his mother, Chara Aurora Cooper Haas, a beloved member of the Bryn
Athyn Church community. It includes pipes from three 1920s Skinner organs,
as well as new 21st-century work by the organ builder Charles Kegg. This is a
testament to Mr. Pitcairn’s taste in organ builders and the quality of Skinner’s
work – and a link between our past and our future.
The woodwork for the façade was built by Historic Doors of Kempton,
headed by Stephen Hendricks, and installed in June, while other improvements
were made to the Cathedral such as reinforcing the organ loft floor.
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