Cardiff Pipeathon
12 March 2013
Tabernacle Church, in Cardiff’s city centre, is launching a Pipeathon on Saturday 16 March (9am-9pm) to help raise the remaining £15,000 of the total £100,000 cost of restoring its organ. Three organists, dressed in Wales rugby shires, will each play 3-hour sets in the run up to the Wales v England Six Nations rugby match.
The organ’s total piping is ‘divided’ into sections which can be sponsored for £1 per foot.
The organ was built in 1907 by the Bath firm of Griffen & Stroud and benefited from a substantial donation from Sir Alfred Thomas MP (later Lord Pontypridd), a faithful deacon at Tabernacle from 1883 until his death in 1927. By 1972 the organ was in a poor state of repair, and J.W. Walker & Sons of London were employed to change the original tracker action to electro-pneumatic, along with other essential repair work. While celebrating the organ’s centenary in 2007, it was obvious that many parts of the instrument – some of them original – were showing their age. Henry Willis & Sons, Liverpool were chosen to carry out the restoration.
The event on 16 March is open to the public.
