Mark Knows It All

Tonight I experienced again why this is a great place to live. Stambaugh Auditorium, a local treasure in its own right, showed off its own masterpiece: the newly renovated 3600 plus pipes Skinner organ. The renovation literally was finished this morning, and a dry run free concert was offered by Organist Dr. Edward Moore, originally from Girard, and now a world renowned organist and professor at Catholic University of America. It was a stunner. Like most of you, my experience with organs has mostly been in churches. Those organs range from barely working old pipe organs, to newly installed new fangled pipe organs, to electric organs that sound like pipe organs. We semi listen to a church prelude, and then sing a couple of versus of Rock of Ages, with the pipes of the organ decoratively gracing the rear wall of the church balcony. That isn’t what this is. It was build in 1926 as an integral part of the newly constructed Stambaugh Auditorium. Pipes range from pencil thin to 32 feet tall....