Organ Transplant: Making New Work for One of the Oldest
Instruments  Sandra Soderlund Sandra Soderlund  Far from being a
historic curio, the pipe organ remains an active part of the
current classical music scene. In the last several years alone,
large pipe organs have been built in several major concert halls
and university auditoriums in the United States, and many of
these establishments have commissioned new works to inaugurate
their instruments.  The organ can seem dauntingly complex to
someone who is new to writing for the instrument. The pipe organ
is a wind instrument playable by two or more manual keyboards
and usually a pedal keyboard. Organ music is generally written
on three staves—two for the hands as in piano music, and an
extra bass staff for the feet.  The mechanism in a mechanical-
action organ is relatively simple. When a key is pressed, it
pulls down a long strip of wood called a tracker that opens a
valve admitting wind to a pipe or pipes. (The wind was
originally supplied by bellows that we