Faculty recital features sounds from the great movie palaces

Faculty recital features sounds from the great movie palaces

Dr. Richard Konzen, professor of music and Grove City College organist, will perform a faculty recital at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 8, in Arnold Recital Hall of the Pew Fine Arts Center on campus.

Sounds from the great movie palaces of the early twentieth-century will come alive again in a program of theatre organ music that features the recently acquired Allen theatre organ donated to the college. The program will consist of some great standard songs from Broadway and movies of the early twentieth century. There will also be a sing-along for audience participation.

The theatre organ, or more properly, a unit orchestra, was developed at the turn of the twentieth century by Robert Hope-Jones, who in time joined his fledgling business with that of Rudolf Wurlizter. The Wurlitzer name became synonymous with the theatre organ.  Theatre organs were used primarily to accompany silent film when the expense of an orchestra (not to mention the problems in getting the musical cues timed just right) became too great. As sound was added to movies, the theatre organ was relegated to playing before the feature movie and doing various sing-alongs.