On 5/8/2016, the San Diego Union Tribune (
visit link) ran the following story:
"SAN DIEGANS GET A BEHIND-THE-SCENES LOOK AT SPRECKLES ORGAN
Mugshot of John WilkensBy John Wilkens | midnight May 8, 2016
BALBOA PARK
When the metal door goes up on the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, what's out front tends to steal the glory. People stare at the row of massive golden pipes and don't think much about what's behind them.
On Saturday, the reverse happened.
About 100 San Diegans and visitors paid for an "Insider's Tour" of the 101-year-old pipe organ. It was a chance to go upstairs and into tight spaces and see where the magic happens, where some 10,000 moving parts turn what is basically a giant box of whistles into something approximating a symphony orchestra.
They went into the air lock, where the change in pressure made their ears pop. They went inside the wind chest, where valves opened and shutters closed. They poked their heads into a chamber to see different sizes of pipes.
And then they came downstairs and announced themselves impressed.
"Incredible," Arlene Esgate said. "Mind-blowing."
"I've been interested in mechanical things since I was a kid and have tried keeping a '53 Volkswagen running," said William Nagy. "You look at this, built in 1915, and you marvel at how in the hell they ever got it to work."
John and Adolph Spreckels, the sugar heirs who were major movers and shakers in San Diego's early days, paid about $100,000 for the Austin Opus No. 453 organ and the pavilion that houses it and donated them to the city for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition.
Their only request was that the concerts played there always be free. They still are, every Sunday at 2 p.m. and during the summer on Monday nights.
Many of the people who paid $50 each for Saturday's tour said they are regular concertgoers. Some were wearing T-shirts or sweatshirts with an image of the Spreckels Organ on the front. Several had been on backstage tours before.
They started about 15 years ago in response to public demand, according to Dale Sorenson, the organ's curator. "This gives the community a sense of ownership, because it is the city's organ, the people's organ," he said. "The tour takes a little of the mystery away, but it creates even more mystery because it is such a complicated piece of machinery."
Saturday's event included a brunch and a four-song concert by Jared Jacobsen, who was the city's civic organist from 1978 to 1984. The tour group sat in folding chairs on the stage, much closer to the four-keyboard console than is allowed during other concerts.
"This is the most amazing instrument," Jacobsen told them. "I'm still finding out things it can do."
Even though they're tricky to maintain and hard to play well, pipe organs used to be in churches and theaters all across America. Their numbers are dwindling, and outdoor organs, always rare, have virtually disappeared. Fewer than a half-dozen still operate.
The Spreckels is the largest outdoor pipe organ in the world, a title it reclaimed recently after a $225,000 fundraising drive that added dozens of pipes, bringing the total to 5,017. When it was built, it had 3,400 pipes, which was the largest at the time, but it got passed by the "Heroes Organ" in Kufstein, Austria, which has 4,948.
Ross Porter, executive director of the nonprofit Spreckels Organ Society, said it may be time to move past the "largest" moniker and instead focus on "greatest" as a tribute to not just what's out front when the pavilion's metal door goes up, but what's in back, too.
"Size isn't everything," he said.
john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com"