PHILADELPHIA — Its gleaming silver pipes soar more than three stories above the stage, and its voice rises from subtle to booming.
It's the Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ, with 6,938 pipes ranging from the size of a drinking straw to 32 feet long.
The 32-ton organ, built at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, is the largest concert hall organ in the United States. It was heard last week for the first time by a live audience, who got a little fresh air to go along with the Philadelphia Orchestra's legendary lush strings.
At an open rehearsal by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the audience gave vigorous applause after the performance that showed off its impressive range, from quietly supporting the orchestra to powerful crescendos that left the audience breathless.
Guest performer Olivier Latry, organist at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, said he was pleased by the sound.
"It's a very warm sound when I need it, which is very good," he said.
The organ is one of the largest built in the past three decades and the 47th largest in the world. It was never intended to be the largest of its kind in the country, but grew larger and larger as Kimmel officials sought greater flexibility.
"It really has to do everything," said Fred Haas, chairman of the Kimmel Center Organ Committee and an organist himself. "To play all kinds of music from more than 500 years of organ music means you have quite a spec list."
The organ was named for Haas' late grandfather, a jeweler and church organist.
The Kimmel Center has relied on electronic organs for performances since it opened in 2001.
"I'm very, very happy that finally the orchestra can play big works with the organ with such a precise instrument," said Christoph Eschenbach, the orchestra's conductor and musical director.
"It's such a difference between a pipe organ and electric, loudspeaker-driven monsters that have such a different sound. It's an artificial sound, whereas this is a clear sound."
The completion of the $6.4 million organ marks the end of eight years of planning, fund-raising and construction that began with a vacant lot that was to become the Kimmel Center.
Last Thursday's rehearsal performance included a new composition, "Toward Light" by Gerald Levinson, commissioned for the event. It kicked off two weeks of feature performances by renowned organists from around the world, silent movies accompanied by the organ, a marathon recital and even a "pay-to-play" promotion that will allow patrons to play the organ for a donation.
"We're trying to do as much as we possibly can to get the public understanding that it's not just church music, it's not just orchestral music," said Mervon Mehta, Kimmel's vice president of programming and education.
"Most people, when they think of an organ, they say, 'Oh, I heard that when I was in church when I was 10,' and that's why you don't like it anymore. Well, that's because you've just heard church music. This can play anything."
Despite taking its place as the country's largest concert hall organ, the new Kimmel organ isn't even the largest pipe organ in its own neighborhood. That title belongs to the department store organ in the Wanamaker Building a few blocks away. It is the largest functioning organ in the world with more than 28,000 pipes.