The Grand Organ at Knowles Memorial Chapel

At the first Winter Park Bach Festival performance, held two days after the 250th birthday of the master in 1935, the first notes of Bach’s magnificent Toccata and Fugue in d minor rang out on the new organ in Knowles Memorial Chapel. The organ and the chapel had been dedicated together on March 29, 1932. Like the chapel, the organ was a gift to Rollins College from Francis Knowles Warren.

During the following decades, the organ music of Bach and his Baroque contemporaries was a permanent part of our annual Festivals. However, by the 1990s many of the organ’s mechanisms, untouched since their installation, were showing the ravages of age, and it essentially became impossible to deliver the wide-ranging and challenging repertoire required of serious performers. With great reluctance, the Society’s Trustees found it necessary to drop organ works from the Festivals.

Eventually, a group of dedicated alumni and friends of the College, led by John Oliver Rich (Rollins Class of 1938 and former Dean of Admissions), conducted a fundraising campaign to completely refurbish and enlarge the instrument. The work also included the installation of an antiphonal organ around the Rose Window at the rear of the Chapel, a long-held dream that became reality through Mr. John Tiedtke's extraordinary generosity. In 2003, the Society reestablished an annual organ recital by major international organists as an integral part of the Annual Bach Festival.

This year, the organ will be featured front and center with four organ programs during the Society’s 87th season. Join us at one or all of these performances for exceptional programs featuring Rollins College’s beloved organ.

Insights & Sounds: Brass and Organ • Thu, Sep 23
Colin MacKnight, organ • Fri, Sep 24
Ken Cowan, organ • Fri, Feb 4
Ken Cowan, organ & Lisa Shihoten, violin • Sun, Feb 6