Organ revival
Oklahoma History Center brings back historic Kilgen theater organ for concert series.
In the elegant atrium of the Oklahoma History Center, music as bright and bouncy as a carnival — slide whistle and all
— resounded with Cole Porter’s rousing promise of “Another Op'nin', Another Show.”
“Well, hopefully not just another show,” quipped organist John Schwandt, director of the American Organ Institute at the University of Oklahoma.
After all, not every concert marks the culmination of a 20-year effort to resurrect a piece of Oklahoma history as rare and tuneful as the WKY Kilgen Organ, a versatile 1935 instrument that provided the music and sound effects for WKY radio and television.
“This instrument ... was in great danger of being lost forever,” Schwandt said during the sold-out spring debut concert for the rebuilt theater organ. “One of the first outside duties I had at the university in 2006 was coming up here to write a report. So, being here, hearing this organ, playing for you, is cathartic, because at that time, the organ was unplayable. And I had the very unhappy duty of telling the History Center, ‘We need to start over.’
“Vision, faith, determination and, of course, the generosity of financial resource, has resulted in the rebirth of what is a magnificent theater organ.”
Radio days
Standing in front of a microphone with a script
in her hand that night, Carolyn Rexroat Warner was transported back to her Classen High School days, when she was, among other things, the “gal about town” host of WKY radio’s live entertainment news program “Later Tonight.” Reading from one of the scripts she saved from her teenage radio career, the Oklahoma native sang the praises of “Wilhelmina,” an Oscar-nominated ditty from the 1950 movie musical “Wabash Avenue,” while Schwandt played the tinkling opening of the grand old gem.
“A song like this proves that movies are better than ever, if they can turn out musical numbers like this. Just see ‘Wabash Avenue,’ and you’ll know what I mean,” Warner read during the April WKY Kilgen Organ dedication concert, which included a re-enactment of live radio shows and commercials performed from scripts Warner kept and later donated to the History Center.
Built in 1935 by George Kilgen & Sons of St. Louis, Missouri, the organ was installed the following year in the new WKY studios in the Skirvin Tower Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City
Before station owner E.K. Gaylord moved her to WKY TV, Warner appeared on many live radio programs, including a Peabody Award-winning children’s show called “The Gizmo Goodkin Show,” which she and a small group of her Classen classmates performed before a live audience of youngsters.
“They were fabulous,” she said. So, she recalled, was Ken Wright, the organist Gaylord hired to play the WKY Kilgen on practically every show and commercial.
“Theater organ, unlike classical organ, is largely dependent on the artist’s personality and their imagination,” Schwandt added, launching into Wright’s swinging version of the jazz standard “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” “Ken had a very distinct style.”
Moving on
As what Schwandt described as “the most thrilling C-major chord ever written in the repertoire” reverberated magnificently, the organist said he believes a legendary Oklahoma City maestro sometimes played Camille SaintSaens’ “Symphony No. 3,” aka the “Organ Symphony,” on the storied instrument.
When Gaylord moved WKY to a new studio on Britton Road in 1951, the Kilgen didn’t make the trip. Wright had an electronic organ to play out there, said Dusty Miller, who has been involved for years in the efforts to revive the Kilgen organ.
“The Kilgen was actually sold or given —or maybe a little combination of both —to the City of Oklahoma City, and it was installed in what was then called the Municipal Auditorium. And it was used for a variety of things,” Miller said. “There were silent movies then, there were art festivals, there were Halloween parties, there were things for the children, and the Kilgen went along with that. Dr. Guy Fraser Harrison also was an accomplished organist and occasionally used the organ with the symphony.”
But by the 1980s, the organ had fallen into disuse. When the city began planning to overhaul the Municipal Auditorium, now known as the Civic Center, in 1997, the Kilgen wasn’t in the plans.
Kilgen & Sons built many classical instruments, but only 250 theater organs. When a group from St. Louis arrived offering to buy the old organ, Bob Blackburn, then the deputy director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, wasn’t willing to letsuch a rare piece of history leavethe state.
Now the historical society’s executive director, Blackburn still remembers standing in front of Mayor Ron Norick and the city council and proposing that the planned Oklahoma History Center would be an ideal home for the old organ. Although he admitted his agency didn’t have any money to buy, remove or store the massive instrument, the council still voted unanimously to give it to the historical society.
“We were so committed to it we had the architect change ... the floor plan of the History Center. We built those pipe chambers in 17 years ago,” Blackburn said, peering into two tall, narrow compartments flanking the History Center’s curved first-floor window.
Resurrected revival
At the dedication concert, Schwandt was just beginning the dreamy 1950s ballad “Secret Love” when he had to stop and send a colleague up into one of those chambers to correct a minor malfunction.
“If he only needs a screwdriver, that’s good,” Schwandt assured the crowd. “They really are miracles, if you saw and realized just how many little bits and mechanisms go into making each note play.”
The 10-minute delay before the organist was able tomake music again was nothing compared withthe 17 years Blackburn waited to hear the multifaceted instrument play.
“This was on my bucket list,” he said.
While the History Center was under construction, Blackburn said the city stored the Kilgen in the tunnels under the old Union Station. Kimray founder and organ enthusiast Garman Kimmell, Miller’s father-in-law, helped get the restoration efforts started.
“Unfortunately, time —and time in storage in particular —had not been kind to this instrument, and it wouldn’t play. We have a couple of people who actually bought tickets to the program that we had hoped to be able to pull off in those days,” Miller said. “Undaunted, the History Center hired several experts to come in ... to assess the situation. And they pretty much all said, ‘You need to do over.’ And that’s a big pill to swallow at that point.”
Although the historical society
took a step back for a time, Miller said generous foundations, businesses and individuals were willing to give to try again. Meanwhile, Schwandt was building at OU a unique program that teaches not just organ performance but also technology, maintenance and restoration.
Two years ago, the three-ton instrument —console, pipes and thousands of parts —was hauled to Norman so that staff, faculty and students could clean, repair and rebuild it.
“Many of the pipes, they looked like they had been flattened by a steamroller,” Schwandt said. “There were literally thousands upon thousands of hours spent by our staff and students.”
New beginning
With obvious relish, Schwandt showed off “all the bells and whistles” —an expression that is often attributed to an eager theater organ salesman — on the restored WKY Kilgen. Beyond making the beautiful music of a classical organ, the theater organ can not only create the orchestral sounds of strings, tubas and clarinets but also simulate birds chirping, thunder rolling, sleigh bells ringing and more.
“And all of that is real. Not a bit of it is electronic,” Schwandt said.
Believed to be one of only four Kilgen theater organs left, the instrument has more than a new permanent home; it also has an audience again. Los Angelesbased organist Mark Herman will play a July 31 “Ice Cream Social” show featuring seasonal musical selections as well as his accompaniment of theBuster Keaton silent comedy short film “Neighbors." Tickets already are sold out.
Tickets are on sale for an Oct. 23 “Halloween at the Movies” event featuring Ohio organist Clark Wilson, and more concerts are planned for 2018.
“This is just the start,” Miller said.