The Organ
The Auckland Town Hall Organ has been rebuilt twice since the Town Hall's 1911 opening.
The first Norman and Beard instrument was a gift to the citizens of Auckland by the city's former mayor, Sir Henry Brett, who held a great love of choral music. In 1969, organ builders George Croft and Son were given the responsibility for the organ's makeover from the romantic, orchestral style of the Edwardian era to the baroque, neo-classical fashion of the Organ Reform Movement. Over time, limitations of the second organ emerged - chiefly that it wasn't loud enough to fill the Hall. City Organist Dr John Wells launched a campaign to "Restore the Splendour" of the organ following the 1997 restoration of the Town Hall. The subsequent 2009 rebuild by Orgelbau Klais would create an organ with the spirit and boldness of the original instrument a century ago with a twenty-first-century vision: an organ for all New Zealand music lovers, Aucklanders and visitors alike.
Read more about the three organs below.
