Vital Organs
Hunter has had some strange requests for product over the years but none stranger than the appeal it received from musician Jules Bushell. He asked them to pull out all the stops to help him build an organ to be played in the auspicious surroundings of London’s Royal Festival Hall.
The organ that Jules is building isn't just a pipe dream. It is part of the Royal Festival Hall’s Pull Out All The Stops organ festival in spring 2014. This has been conceived to celebrate the restoration of the venue’s magnificent 7,866 pipe instrument, centrepiece of the concert auditorium. The £2.3million, four year project to renovate this unique organ will conclude in an organ festival on an unprecedented scale. As part of the celebrations the Royal Festival Hall commissioned the building of four new organs, which will be used in a concert written and performed by folk superstars Bellowhead.
Hunter Plastics didn’t just supply Jules – who describes himself as a performer, composer, sound designer and creator of bespoke noises - with a bunch of random pipes. They all sang from the same hymn sheet, working together to discover which pipes in the Hunter range would work best. In the end, Jules settled on a variety of white solvent soil and waste pipes and fittings to form the pipe section of his highly unusual new organ, which he hopes will hit all the right notes.
“I wanted to construct an instrument entirely from recognisable, everyday stuff that people would be able to identify when the organ was playing – be it a tap, or a part from a bicycle or a plumbing pipe,” says Jules. “Our local plumbers merchant, Jack’s Plumbing Supplies in Wellington, Somerset put us in touch with Hunter and they have been so helpful in providing the bits we needed.” Jules is even keen for Hunter’s branding to be on display on the pipes, as part of his utilitarian-inspired design. You could say Hunter's pipes are the key to his success!
Pipes from the Hunter solvent weld soil and waste ranges from 22mm overflow right up to 110mm soil pipe have been used to create the organ’s pipes along with some air admittance valves, and various bends and fittings. Their tough construction will withstand the knocks and scrapes it will receive being on public display in London. The organ, which Jules describes as sounding “like a giant recorder”, will be on display at the Royal Festival Hall before its moment in the spotlight on 22 and 23 March.