Dulwich Festival and Christ’s Chapel

On Saturday 10th may 2014, visitors to the Dulwich Festival gathered at Christ’s church chapel Dulwich for demonstration of the restored England organ.

Chapel Organist, Marilyn Harper, described the history of the instrument and demonstrated its unique individual and combined sounds. Special mention was made of the great Cornet, the Choir Vox Humana and the pedal section. Some observers had never seen an organ console close up, so it was exciting for them to see how an organist controls the manuals, pedals and stops

Audience members asked questions, made nice comments before some got up to play. One young student played one of his Grade 5 piano pieces, Cavalryman by Kabalevsky, discovering that there weren’t quite enough notes for the left hand. He was shown how to solo a melody on another manual and how to reinforce the main bass notes by using the pedals’ his excellent efforts drew a most appreciated cheer from the audience.

Others also took their turn to see how this organ compared to the one visitors to the Royal festival hall’s Pull Out The Stops campaign tried a few weeks before. Before the meeting ended members of the SSLSO committee helped others to play, and played themselves. the aim of the meeting was to showcase the organ and the Society.

Marilyn Harper