Girard College Organ

Ted Alan Worth at the console

DTR Recordings of the Girard College Organ

DTR9301 Pipes Alive! (Ted Alan Worth)
DTR8403 Great Skinner Organ at Girard College (Diane Meredith Belcher)
DTR8804 Poulenc & Jongen: Music for Organ & Orchestra

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Girard College was founded in 1848 by the terms of the will of financier and banker, Stephen Girard, the French businessman who figured prominently in the American Revolution. Originally for "poor white male orphans", the courts in recent years have changed admission policies to include motherless boys as well as fatherless boys between 6 and 18, other races, and now girls. Founder's Hall is a supreme example of Gothic Revival architecture, and the Chapel is unique among buildings anywhere.

The Grecian, wedge-shaped building contains a 2400-seat auditorium for non-sectarian services. Huge stone columns line the windowed walls, while the organ is installed in the triangular ceiling above gold-leafed lattice work. The distance at the highest point above the floor is perhaps 90 feet. The famed English organ builder, G. Donald Harrison, worked with the E. M. Skinner Organ Company of Boston in this 1933 installation. Organ and building were completed together. The 102-stop, 6587-pipe organ is controlled by a 4-manual console placed in the front of the chapel in the choir area. The organ chambers in the ceiling are built around a huge fan-shaped mixing chamber from which the sound descends through the lattice to the chapel below. In 1986 Austin Organs, Inc., rebuilt the console within the original Skinner shell. The console was rotated 180o and placed on a lift so that it and the organist may be seen at concerts.

The picture above is looking towards the front of the chapel with the organ console out of sight. At left we are looking from the front towards the back of the chapel. A portion of the ceiling latticework which covers the organ is visible.

The picture at right shows the 8' Tuba Mirabilis mounted horizontally on the ceiling grill some 90 feet above the floor with the bottoms of the 32' Open Diapason pipes behind.