Restoration

Robert Morton Theatre Pipe Organ

Friends of The Strand will also be installing a large 1927 15-rank Robert Morton Theatre Pipe Organ. It has been said that the Theatre Pipe Organ was the soul of the American movie palace. The instrument is a gift to The Strand from the Atlanta Chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society and was originally installed in the Capitol Theatre on Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Ga. The Capitol was in the heart of the Atlanta Theatre District between the old Davison's Department Store and the Henry Grady Hotel.

The Robert Morton Organ Company was the second largest builder of Theatre Pipe Organs, next to Wurlitzer, and its factory was located in Van Nuys, a suburb of Los Angeles, California. The Theatre Pipe Organ, an original American musical instrument and the first modern synthesizer, was used to accompany silent films, community sing-a-longs, and present solo concerts for a fairly short-lived period of American beginning in the early 1920's and having its heyday in the 1920's until "talking pictures" arrived.

This particular instrument filled a large 2000-seat movie house with grand orchestral music. It's ranks (individual sounds) consisted of Post Horn, Oboe Horn, Saxophone, Orchestral Oboe, Violin, Violin Celeste, Tuba, Trumpet, Kinura, Vox Humana, Tibia, Clarinet, Diapason, Gamba, and Concert Flute. In addition to these ranks of individual pipe sounds the instrument also had numerous sound effects to include: rain, surf, chimes, xylophone, orchestra bells, marimba, celesta, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, tom tom, Chinese block, tambourine, sleigh bells, and castanets. The organ, voiced on 15" of wind pressure and of large scale, will definitely make a statement to patrons of The Strand.

With the installation of the Robert Morton Theatre Organ, the Strand will be only one of three remaining theaters in Georgia that have a real honest-to-goodness pipe organ. The organ will be completely and professionally restored and will have its own elevator lift where its black and silver console will soon rise from the depths of the theatre bathed again in a golden spotlight!!