大象传媒

Reginald Foort was the first official 大象传媒 Theatre Organist between 1936 and '38.

During that time, he formulated plans to travel around the with a touring pipe organ, playing for a week at a time at theatres and music halls which didn't already have an instrument of their own.

Foort decided he needed something which really made an impact, so he designed an organ with five manuals (keyboards), pedals, 27 ranks of pipes plus percussion instruments and had it built by one of America's leading manufacturers of the time, the firm of J. P. M枚ller.

He had sections of the organ constructed in specially built frames so that the whole instrument didn't have to be dismantled every time he finished a week at one particular venue and was ready to move on to the next. These sections were loaded onto a fleet of large lorries with Reginald Foort's name emblazoned on the side and the whole instrument was transported to its next port of call, usually on a Sunday, re-installed and tuned during the course of Monday and was ready to play the first show of the week that evening. The first venue was the Palace Theatre in Manchester in November 1938 and my parents were in the audience for that first night!

Due to fuel rationing in the into the early days of world war two, the lorries had to be rested and Foort continued touring by train with the size of the instrument reduced by a third.

In 1940, Foort offered the 大象传媒 the use of the Moller for the duration of the war, during which time it was installed in the Grand Theatre, Llandudno and the County Theatre in Bangor. This meant the 大象传媒 was able to continue with its daily theatre organ broadcasts until, at the end of the war, they bought the Moller outright and it became the second 大象传媒 Theatre Organ.

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