It is rumoured that about 30 years ago, the most famous organist in the World, Klaus Wunder lich, gave up playing organs because he was frustrated that they were not powerful enough to change orchestrations on the fly whilst used in a concert performance. At that time Wersi organs of West Germany developed a computerised organ with the capability of instant registration changes with realistic orchestral sounds. This tempted Klaus back into public performances! With this background, a member of our Club at the time, Barry Kent, decided he would love one of these and although they were very expensive, they were about the only major organ company that allowed you to buy one direct in a kit format. Barry thus imported the parts and spent many months putting the components and circuit boards together. I seem to recall being invited to his home one day and say the organ under construction - quite a frightening array of electronic parts all over the show! However he finished the project and ended up with a $30,000 organ for $16,000 (not counting the hundreds of hours of labour to put it all together!).
Above news clipping is courtesy of Ngaire Lonergan's archives.
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