A pipe organ that provided the live music for silent movies in an ornate Detroit theater nearly a century ago is set to become the centerpiece of a performing arts center on a New York college campus.
Carlton Smith, left, and Justin Nimmo pose in from of the console of the Barton Opus 234 theater organ that is undergoing restoration at Carlton Smith Pipe Organ Restorations in Indianapolis, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. The massive pipe organ built nearly a century ago for an extravagant movie house in Detroit is expected to be the centerpiece of a performing arts center at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y.
“We were such a rich market for moviegoers that the theater owners built these palatial places,” Lauter says. “There were no plain Jane movie houses back then.” “He pulled together all of his friends in the winter of 1963,” Lauter says. “The building had no electricity and no heat. They came in with Coleman lanterns and block and tackle.”
“This whole project was to see this organ through to safety, until I could find an institution to restore it to what it was," Ball says, adding that he had always hoped the Barton Opus would end up in a theater mirroring its original home. Ball will donate his Barton Opus to the school, where it will be the centerpiece of the new performing arts center. The theater that will house the organ is expected to open by January 2026. Restoration work on the organ is a little over two-thirds complete, according to Smith.
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Reviving Hollywood glamor of the silent movie era, experts piece together a century-old pipe organA pipe organ that provided the live music for silent movies in an ornate Detroit theater nearly a century ago is set to become the centerpiece of a performing arts center on a New York college campus. The Barton Opus, built in 1927, spent four decades stored in a garage, attic and basement in suburban Detroit, split into thousands of pieces.
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Reviving Hollywood glamor of the silent movie era, experts piece together a century-old pipe organA pipe organ that provided the live music for silent movies in an ornate Detroit theater nearly a century ago is set to become the centerpiece of a performing arts center on a New York college campus.
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