Restoring the Exposition Organ

The Exposition Organ (or the People’s Organ, or Opus 500) was built for the opening of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition on February 21, 1915. Seated at the console was the fair’s official organist, Wallace Sabin, and with a large chorus, orchestra, and Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.

Famous British organist Edwin H. Lemare played nearly every day at noon and again at 8:30pm, each performance with a different repertoire. At every concert, Lemare improvised on themes sent up by the audience and his concerts became so popular that fair officials approved the expansion of seating in Festival Hall. By closing day, 18.5 million people had come to the fair and Lemare had played 121 concerts to almost 150,000 people. That year, Camille Saint-Saëns premiered and conducted his specially composed work, Hail! California, for orchestra, band, and organ.

Unlike most world fairs, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition closed with profits. The Exposition Company decided to donate these unexpected funds to the City of San Francisco. A large building called Exposition Auditorium had already been erected in the city’s Civic Center. It, along with the Exposition Organ, were deeded to the city. Felix F. Schoenstein & Sons was contracted to dismantle and reinstall the instrument in the new Civic Auditorium. The dismantling process began two days after the close of the fair. Lemare was contracted to supervise the revoicing and reinstallation.

In 1989, the Loma-Prieta earthquake damaged the organ rendering it inoperable. This remarkable 40-ton instrument has 7,500 pipes with an 800+ square foot footprint. It’s sonic field needs a room with several million cubic feet of space as its soundboard. The instrument was painstakingly disassembled and moved across the country to Austin Organs in Hartford, CT where it was carefully restored in the 90’s. Even with funding shortfalls, the instrument was lovingly restored and transferred back to San Francisco where for 30 years, it has laid in Brooks Hall, the basement of Civic Center.

Cadence for Change is committed to continuing the advocacy and efforts for over 25 years by Vic Ferrer, Michael Evje & Justin Kielty to find a suitable home for the instrument. Imagine that the City of San Francisco reclaim all that storage space, save offsite City storage, and return this remarkable refurbished instrument to the people of San Francisco. In doing so, we could restore an organ department to SF Conservatory of Music and set about a large nationwide restoration project of organists to return this instrument home.

Cadence for Change is in discussions with the City to explore viability. For more information about the Exhibition Organ, click here.