The Organ Lofts of Edinburgh
10 March 2010
On Tuesday evening, nine curious pupils explored the organ lofts of Edinburgh. The trip began at home in our very own organ gallery with a look behind the casing of the Kenneth Jones organ. We continued to Canongate Kirk on the Royal Mile, where John Kitchen and Richard Neville-Towell demonstrated and introduced the beautiful Frobenius organ. Esther and Roy played a brief duet, before the pupils moved up the road to St. Giles' Cathedral, for a deafening demonstration of the 3 manual Rieger organ. We were all amazed at the sheer power of the instrument and its dazzling appearance. Simon Nieminski demonstrated the organ in St. Mary's Metropolitan Cathedral, which was the most recent: finished in 2007. Our minibus then took us to the West End to visit St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, where we were lucky enough to hear the end of a beautiful choral evensong. Although the cathedral was very cold, the acoustic of the building and sonorities of the 19th century instrument made for a colourful blend of sound to end our evening