New cathedral organ set to 'break down barriers'

A new organ being installed at a city cathedral will "break down barriers" for the whole community, according to one of the team behind its installation.

The organ at Gloucester Cathedral has been played digitally since 2022, after an electrical failure, but a new organ is now being built inside the 350 year old case.

The new instrument, being built as part of the £3m In Tune Project, is designed to better support singing, after the previous one, built in 1971, was controversially designed for concert music.

Assistant director of music at Gloucester Cathedral, Jonathan Hope, said while the organ is "a complicated machine", it also "does break down barriers".

"We're able to open to anyone of any background, age, socio-economic, racial or cultural background," Hope said.

"It's not just the cathedral's expensive toy, it's an instrument that will benefit, we hope, as many people as possible," Hope added.

James Atherton, head voicer at Nicholson and Co, said the idea behind the organ was to "put the liturgy at the heart" of it, so it has sounds that are relevant to and "supports congregational singing" and cathedral choirs.

"The actual core of the organ that we're providing now is an organ that is going to be relevant in 50 years time rather than designed with the musical fashions of the day," he said.

Atherton and his team are around three quarters of the way through rebuilding the organ with 3338 pipes, slightly fewer than the last one.

Atherton said it had been a challenge to build, with the team having to think "outside the box" at times.

He said they had to use "various stops at different pitches to get the colours that you want without having additional pipes".

Atherton, who has been involved with the cathedral for 22 years, said while he was still unsure how the new organ will sound, he does think it is "going to be much richer".

After the previous organ failed, samples of the Hereford Cathedral organ were played instead using an array of speakers in the organ case and loft.

Reverend Canon Craig Huxley-Jones, canon precentor at the cathedral said the two digital organs were the "poor relative" to the real thing and said he could not wait to hear the organ "thundering away" in the building.

"It's the instrument to which our five choirs sing on a daily basis, which provides the accompaniment for all of our congregations to sing their hymns, so it really is central to the worshipping life of the cathedral," he said.

"Pipe organs have this amazing ability to move the air and have this incredible ability to stir people into singing," he added.

The new instrument will be launched at an organ festival in June and is set to be at the heart of a new outreach programme at the cathedral.

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