Feather Market Centre organ

A lot of people know where the Feather Market Centre is but I bet very few have seen the very impressive organ that adorns the front of the main hall.  The concert hall pipe organ was inaugurated in June 1999 and cost R2,6m at the time.  The organ stands 14 meters high, 10 meters wide and 4,5 meters deep, weighs 20 tons and has 5508 pipes.  Pretty impressive. 

The organ was designed by Prof Albert Troskie, built by local organ builder Jan Pekelharing and is a combination of old and new.  The nucleus of the organ consist of the old 1892 Norman & Beard organ which was situated in the adjacent Shelly Hall.  The facade of this organ is still visible in the hall.  In addition to this the pipes of an 1880 Forster & Andrews organ from Durban was installed along with a significant number of new stops.  The rest of the organ is all new with the organ facade's decorated wood carved panels taking ten local woodcarvers two years to complete.  The organ gets used in at least 9 recitals every year by both South African as well as international organists.  

I was invited to view the organ with a couple of local tourist guides and we had the immense pleasure to have Prof Troskie play the organ for us while we were there.  Truly a privilege.