The Palace Theater has launched a campaign to raise $250,000 to upgrade its historic, century-old pipe organ to meet the operating standards of the 21st century.
“I know it’s a large ask for the Hilo community, but we’re chipping away at it, trying to get there,” Phillips Payson, the theater’s executive director, said last week.
The core of the instrument is the console from the Waikiki Theater on Oahu which, while functional at a certain level, was already outmoded technology when installed in the early 2000s.
“The console has suffered the elements for a number of years,” Payson said. “There’s constant electrical rewiring to be done, constant maintenance. The tuning is such a monstrous thing to keep up with. Hopefully, our newly installed air-conditioning will play in our favor to keep things in a more controlled environment. But being so close to the ocean and the tropical climate here are not doing anybody any favors when it comes to maintaining an instrument so particular.
“We’re looking to swap out the console itself, which is the instrument keys played by the organist, which control the air flow to trigger the pipes and make the music,” he continued. “We’re looking to swap out the console with an electric-capable version, which would still be able to plug in to the existing pipe network, but also have the … capabilities of connecting to the in-house sound system. Then, we would be able to program and install different organ samples from around the world so we could load up samples from a cathedral in Paris or something from Barcelona. We could program all of these sounds that the physical components of this organ are not capable of doing. And that would allow us to perform maintenance on the physical components and not have the instrument be down for a foreseeable time period.”
Organist Walter Greenwood said the instrument is owned by the Hilo Theater Organ Society, and the group is responsible for the upkeep. The organization has an agreement with the Palace to house the organ and provide players for it for certain events. At this point, those players are Greenwood for the Palace’s silent movie nights and Rick Mazurowski, who plays a half-hour of organ music Tuesday evenings prior to the night’s featured movie. Both of these events are also linked to the fundraising effort for the organ.
“The organ is on the order of 100 years old, and it’s received maintenance as possible over the years, but there are a lot of parts made of wood and leather that wear out over time and need to be replaced and reworked,” Greenwood said. “We’ve actually had a problem with rats, probably, in the console, chewing on wires and relieving themselves on the electronics.”
Greenwood noted that in the early days of movie theaters, pipe organ accompaniment brought an orchestral-quality in-house soundtrack to silent movies for a much cheaper price than hiring a full orchestra — something early 20th century movie theaters did before theater organs were invented.
Once movie technology became more advanced and “talkies” added musical soundtracks to the films themselves, theater organs became obsolete almost overnight.
“People were throwing them in the trash, and there was a lot of metal that could be salvaged and sold,” Greenwood said, referring to the pipes themselves.
“There are very few cities that now have an operating theater pipe organ,” he added. “So, what we have here in Hilo is an important and valuable community resource that needs to be maintained.”
Mazurowski said there is a reason the Palace and the Hilo Theater Organ Society are going for the large ask previously mentioned by Payson.
“We could be going for the nickel and dime, trying to fix lots of things in the console,” Mazurowski said. “But if we just replace it with modern electronics, then it will be set for the lifetime of the organ. And then we won’t be expending money on a lot of things that might later be tossed. When you look on the inside, there’s just a lot of old electronics that corrode — and rodents get in there and chew on things.
“This organ is a treasure. And rather than try to hunt down old electronics and old capacitors and old switches and things like that, if we could just replace the console and hook it up to the pipes — then, we’d be set for decades.”
Dona-tions are being accepted via the Palace’s website at http://hilopalace.com under “support” on the drop-down menu. People also can send donations or drop them off at the Palace at 38 Haili St., Hilo, HI 96720, with a note the donation is for the theater organ project.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.