Even the Stones Sing

FEATURE

HEINZ CHAPEL RESONATES WITH ITS NEWLY RESTORED ORGAN.

E V E N T H E S T O N E S
SING

WRITTEN BY MARK COLLINS
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HERB FERGUSON

It catches us unawares: a musical passage so rich, so affecting, so potent that we're soon choking back tears in powerful awe, struck dumb by a sensuality without a name. Such is the strength of music.

And nowhere is that authority more evident than in Heinz Chapel, where 4,272 organ pipes cause even the stones to sing.

The Reuter organ, a generous gift from the Howard Heinz Endowment and the third in the Chapel's 57-year history, was renovated in 1995. It took months to assemble and calibrate

ROBERT SUTHERLAND LORD AT THE CONSOLE OF THE RENOVATED ORGAN. LORD, PROFESSOR OF MUSIC, HAS BEEN THE UNIVERSITY ORGANIST FOR 34 YEARS.
SALMEN INSTALLS ONE OF THE SMALLEST OF THE MORE THAN 4,000 PIPES THAT MAKE UP THE NEW ORGAN.

the 73 ranks of pipes--some measured in feet, others the size of a cigarette. While the Reuter Company of Lawrence, Kansas, tried to reuse many of the existing materials (rebuilding, for instance, the organ console in the rear gallery), many of the stops, bellows, and pipes were crafted anew specifically for the chapel. Likewise, a new computer control was added, along with an English tuba stop so large and powerful that it is housed in the space between the interior ceiling and the roof of the chapel.

The result is both fresh and familiar. The organ's new resonance retains its ever present liturgical capacity, but with a depth of passion that matches the soaring spire, that suits the moods of countless services, performances, and weddings that harmonizes with the chapel's more reflective moments.

It's a language appropriate to this space, a melding of the song and the sacred. For those who come here for solace or for celebration, the stones echo with a thousand voices, newly purified through the timeless tradition of pipes, bellows, and the human touch.