The Timeline of the Basilica Organ Project
The Murdy Family Organ will be the fifth to accompany prayer inside Notre Dame’s main church, a story nearly as old as the University itself. The need for a larger and better instrument to keep up with the school’s growth and ambitions has driven each move for a new instrument.
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1850s
The University's original Sacred Heart Church receives a small reed organ.
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1865
Father Edward Sorin, CSC, approves the replacement of the first instrument with a hand-pumped organ of 1,500 pipes.
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1875
Derrick and Felgemeker of Erie, Pennsylvania, installs a 2,000 pipe organ inside the new but still incomplete Sacred Heart Church.
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1961
University President Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, approves a minor renovation that adds 300 pipes to the basilica organ.
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April 2, 1978
Marjorie O'Malley donates an organ built by the Holtkamp Organ Company of Cleveland, Ohio. It debuts at a dedication Mass celebrated by Father Hesburgh and a recital performed by Professor Michael Schneider of Cologne, Germany.
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Fall 1981
Professor Craig Cramer joins Notre Dame’s Department of Music and takes up department chair Calvin Bower’s charge to build the organ performance program.
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2004
Paul Fritts and Company Organ Builders of Tacoma, Washington, finishes a 35-stop organ, another O’Malley gift, designed in the northern German tradition, for the Reyes Organ and Choral Hall of the new DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.
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Late 2006
Campus Ministry forms a committee to explore replacement of the basilica organ. Dr. Gail Walton, the basilica’s director of music since 1988, leads the effort.
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December 2006
Amidst a nationwide organ crawl, the committee travels to Columbus, Ohio, for the dedication of the new Fritts organ in Saint Joseph Cathedral — the one that “seals the deal” for Notre Dame’s second Fritts commission.
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2008
The Great Recession hits university endowments and benefactions across the country, taking a toll on capital projects. The idea of replacing the basilica organ is tabled indefinitely.
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February 2010
Gail Walton dies after a long illness, leaving the project without its foremost champion.
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Fall 2010
University administration approves a plan to commission a new organ for the basilica and the search begins for a donor.
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2012
Paul Fritts begins to design and authorizes pipe making before signing the Notre Dame contract. Plans eventually call for a four-manual instrument with 70 stops, 5,164 pipes and a case inspired by Dutch masterpieces. It is to be Fritts’ magnum opus.
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December 2013
Work on the case begins in Tacoma.
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Christmas 2013
The basilica closes to prepare for the first phase of the organ project, the replacement of the building’s carpeting with 25,000 slate-colored porcelain tiles that improve the church’s acoustics. The renovation takes 44 days.
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2014
Denis ’67 and Susan McCusker donate a studio organ that Fritts designed for the Walton Choir Rehearsal Hall in Campus Ministry’s Coleman-Morse Center.
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October 2015
Fritts loans Notre Dame a fourth organ for use in the basilica once the Holtkamp is removed. Workers reinforce the basilica loft’s concrete and steel support structure down to the foundation.
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December 28, 2015
After a Mass celebrating the Holy Family, the Holtkamp plays its last song, “Silent Night.” Work begins the next morning to remove it. Basilica choirs will sing from risers next to the interim organ in the basilica’s west transept.
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July 2016
Loaded onto a pair of tractor-trailers, the organ now named for benefactors Wayne and Diana Murdy arrives at Notre Dame early on Sunday July 31. The work of reassembling it in its new home begins.
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August 2016
Students returning to campus see the organ’s completed façade for the first time as Fritts and Co. begins tuning and voicing the pipes and connecting the organ’s key action, stop action, windworks and electrical wiring.
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October 2016
The organ passes its first full performance test during the annual Blue Mass honoring police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel on October 6. The last rank of pipes is tuned and voiced two weeks later.
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January 20, 2017
Professor Cramer performs an evening dedication recital on the Feast of Blessed Basil Moreau, founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross.