The Sydney Town Hall Grand Organ is a large pipe organ

Pipe organ

The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...

 built by English firm William Hill & Son in 1890. It is located in the Centennial Hall of Sydney Town Hall

Sydney Town Hall

The Sydney Town Hall is a landmark sandstone building located in the heart of Sydney. It stands opposite the Queen Victoria Building and alongside St Andrew's Cathedral...

 in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

When it was installed in 1890, Sydney Town Hall’s Grand Organ was the largest in the world and described as the ‘finest organ ever built by an English organ builder’. It contains one of only two full-length 64′ organ stop

Organ stop

An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; some can be "on" , while others can be "off" .The term can also refer...

s in the world (the Contra-Trombone in the pedal). The other 64' stop is the Diaphone-Dulzian in the Right Stage chamber (Pedal Right division) of the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ at Boardwalk Hall

Boardwalk Hall

Boardwalk Hall, formally known as the Historic Atlantic City Convention Hall, is an arena in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States...

 in Atlantic City, New Jersey

Atlantic City, New Jersey

Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

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History

In 1973, Sydney Council began a major restoration program to address the mechanical problems it had begun to experience. Managing the program was R H Pogson Pty Ltd whose employees worked for almost 10 years to restore the organ to its original form.

Today, visitors to Town Hall can enjoy free organ recitals which are held throughout the year.

External links

• The Grand Organ - City of Sydney
• Sydney Town Hall Grand Organ brochure (PDF
  Portable Document Format
  Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
  
  , 114KB.)
• The Organ Music Society of Sydney
• Sydney Town Hall Organ Specifications