Center for the arts houses 1920s Wurlitzer organ
FOXBURG, Clarion County — Organs need consistent maintenance for their pipes to continue producing music properly, but the one at Allegheny RiverStone Center for the Arts also powers a “toy counter,” made up of a dozen more miniature instruments.
The Mighty McKissick Wurlitzer at the center has been featured in hundreds of concerts, to the point where Allegheny RiverStone had to raise $76,000 to fund the necessary restoration of the instrument in 2024.
While the money is used to purchase equipment needed to keep the organ working, the center also has a resident organ technician who has been providing maintenance to the nearly 100-year-old instrument for at least a decade.
Jason Wiles, who is originally from Slippery Rock, said organs already are fragile instruments — “about 10 things have to happen for a single note to play,” he said. Additionally, the person who brought the organ to Foxburg, Paul McKissick, installed it in a precarious fashion, so the repair project was considerably difficult.
“About every 40ish years, these things have to be rebuilt. Different components have to be rebuilt at different rates,” Wiles said. “Because Paul managed to fit this instrument into a couple of coat closets, it isn't exactly the easiest thing to maintain. So I have actually had to uninstall it and make corrections and repairs and then put it back together.”
The Lincoln Hall McKissick Mighty Wurlitzer is one of only 300 Wurlitzer theater organs existing today in the U.S., from the 10,000 built between 1910 and 1940. A number of these instruments are in private residences, but Allegheny RiverStone’s is one of 24 built in its size and style, according to the center’s website.
The project to restore the instrument is valuable because of the rarity and specificity of each individual Wurlitzer, according to John Soroka, executive director of RiverStone. He said the fragile nature of the instrument, as well as its historical significance, make it worthwhile to keep despite the challenges to maintain it.
“In 1928 when this was installed in Cleveland, its actual cost was $48,000. Huge money back then,” Soroka said. “The limitations of the technology of the day have been a little bit of a hindrance compared to modern.”
Kathy Soroka, John’s wife and the nonprofit’s artistic programming director, also said appreciation of the organ from audiences of adults and students alike, has supported the couple’s mission in maintaining it as a historical piece.
“The generosity and the passion people have for this sound and this organ, and ... what Jason has done now prepares this instrument to be heard for generations,” Kathy Soroka said. “That's a lot of people who will be able to have this joy.”
Built in 1928 at the Wurlitzer Organ factory in North Tonawanda, N.Y., outside Buffalo and numbered OPUS 1989, the organ originally was installed in Cleveland’s Uptown Theatre, which opened Nov. 22, 1928. The organ was played for several years accompanying silent movies, according to the Sorokas.
Its 17 ranks of pipes translate to 60 notes per voice or rank, more than 1,200 pipes and 6,000 moving parts that make the Wurlitzer sound.
McKissick bought his Wurlitzer around 2005 and had it installed in Lincoln Hall in Foxburg for a debut performance in September 2006.
The installation included one of Wurlitzer’s most unique features, the decorative ‘Toy Counter’ of miniature instruments, which are displayed in a rear balcony in Lincoln Hall and are all powered by the organ. A marimba was added, and all the associated drums, cymbals, bells and automatic piano produce a balanced blend of unmistakable Mighty Wurlitzer sounds.
John Soroka commented the organ combined with the “toy” instruments would have been used to create a variety of sounds that would normally be used to accompany silent films of the era. In larger theaters, these instruments might replace an entire arsenal of musicians.
“A place like New York would have a small orchestra employed at a larger theater, Foxburg might have just a pianist,” John Soroka said. “There were tons of theaters and tons of musicians that eventually got turned out onto the streets when a theater owner made an investment into one of these.”
The organs didn’t last as long as theater owners probably would have liked, however, because of the rise of talkie films in the late-1920s. Wiles said the organs and their accompanying instruments fell by the wayside and were deemed far less valuable once movies came with audio tracks. It was mainly collectors who have salvaged them from the dump, according to Wiles.
“A lot of these were deemed as surplus or scrap because movie houses were looking at them like a liability more than an asset, so people like Paul saved them from going to the dump,” Wiles said.
The challenge in restoring the Wurlitzer lay not only with fixing parts nearing 100 years old, but finding parts that could plausibly replace old or missing pieces of particular instruments. Wiles said because the toy instruments are made to be operated remotely, most of them don’t resemble the human-played instruments typically seen in a band or orchestra. Their age also adds to their irregularity.
“Other than the drumheads, all of that is original stuff from the 20s,” he said. “The tambourine doesn't look like a tambourine. There is a wood block, horse hooves, a bird whistle.”
The actual keyboard that can be played to produce music and play the toys is called the console, Kathy Soroka said, but the instruments can also be controlled by programming on a computer. The console had to have some work done as well, because the keys were a bit sticky, Wiles said.
“If you're trying to play something, the touch needs to be fairly uniform from keyboard to keyboard and it really wasn't for this,” Wiles said. “Not only were the depths different, but the pressure to make the key sound was different. A lot of notes didn't play.”
Even though there is still a lot of work to do on the organ before the restoration project is complete, Wiles said it is in playing condition and musicians have been performing on it at Lincoln Hall for the past several months. On Nov. 9, Jonas Nordwall, “an internationally renowned virtuoso organist,” performed at a 20th anniversary concert for the Wurlitzer.
But traveling musicians are not the only ones tickling the ivories at Lincoln Hall — Wiles is himself a player, and the Sorokas have musical backgrounds as well.
But the Sorokas and Wiles agreed being an organist involves more than just musical know-how. The technical ins and outs of the instrument also are important aspects of being an organist.
“That’s what keeps me going, is the constant problem-solving,” Wiles said. “I know of several of these organists that were at least dual majors — organ performance, typically and in two cases electrical engineering. Jonas is one of those.”
Kathy Soroka said keeping the organ functional is important for this reason. It’s not just the music it produces, it’s how it produces the sounds that comprise the music that make it an important piece of musical history.
“The technical aspect of it, I think it’s fascinating for scientific minds also,” Kathy Soroka said. “It’s art and technological.”
