Past Projects
Willis organ
2004/5 £330,000
The great nave organ, built for the Cathedral by the Victorian organ builder Henry Willis, is an instrument which is used daily as part of the life of the Cathedral. While the case on the south side of the Choir is what most visitors see and think of as the instrument only represents a fraction of the pipes. Over four thousand pipes, some of which you work as you pass from the south transept into the south choir aisle, create a sound which is distinctive to Hereford.
As a working instrument the organ however takes much wear and tear. Leather work to bellows and blowers ripe and perish, mechanical joints cease and break, and pipes along which air if forced wear and rupture. The restoration took the instrument to part and then re-built it ensuring that the ‘Hereford sound’, which is known and loved around the world, was returned to this great building.
During the restoration an education programme was run to enable people to learn more about this wonderful instrument and during which over £52,000 was given by those who loved and valued it as part of a sponsor-a-pipe scheme. Some of these gifts have been enable a fund to be established to help with major pieces of on-going repair.
The project also enable the book ‘Organists and organs of Hereford Cathedral’ to be revised and updated, a season of celebratory gala recital series which attracted over 2,000 and, perhaps most significantly, the installation of a video of link which enables an image of the recitalist to be projected onto a screen in the nave. This video system has also been essential in developing an organ section to the Cathedral’s music outreach programme, which started with over 1,500 children visiting over five days to watch and listen to Peter and the Wolf being played.
The 2004 restoration of the Willis organ was supported by
The Foundation for Sports and the Arts
Rowlands Trust
Idlewild Trust
Hereford Cathedral Perpetual Trust
and many individual donors
For more information, including how you might give support, on Hereford Cathedral please contact:
Hereford Cathedral Perpetual Trust
5 College Cloisters
Hereford HR1 2NG
01432 374261
perpetual.trust@herefordcathedral.org
Donate here to support the Willis organ
