Manuel Rosales and Kevin Gilchrist
collaborate on a new publication about
early Southern California organ building
Murray M. Harris
and Organ Building
in Los Angeles, 1894-1913
by David Lennox Smith, edited by Orpha Ochse
Published by OHS
Press
Murray M. Harris returned in
1894 from his Boston apprenticeship with organ builder
George S. Hutchings to a booming Los Angeles where only
eight pipe organs existed. Six years later, Los Angeles
would have 154 churches in it and scores of new pipe
organs, many of them built by Harris. Harris and Henry
C. Fletcher became business partners and founded the
city’s first organ building firm, Fletcher & Harris.
From this beginning more than 100 organs were built by
1913, including the world’s largest for the 1904 St.
Louis World’s Fair, and that would become Philadelphia’s
famous Wanamaker Organ.
David Lennox Smith
(d. 1979) carefully gathered the history of Harris and
his contemporaries and Orpha Ochse has updated Smith’s
research with the help of colleagues Manuel Rosales,
Kevin Gilchrist, Jim Lewis, and Jack Bethards to include
an annotated opus list, listings of organ builders from
the Los Angeles City Directories, many stoplists and
photographs, and technical details.
344 pages, hardbound
This book is available from the
Organ Historical Society
and may be purchased online. Visit their
site for prices
and complete information.
Murray M. Harris returned in
1894 from his Boston apprenticeship with organ builder
George S. Hutchings to a booming Los Angeles where only
eight pipe organs existed. Six years later, Los Angeles
would have 154 churches in it and scores of new pipe
organs, many of them built by Harris. Harris and Henry
C. Fletcher became business partners and founded the
city’s first organ building firm, Fletcher & Harris.
From this beginning more than 100 organs were built by
1913, including the world’s largest for the 1904 St.
Louis World’s Fair, and that would become Philadelphia’s
famous Wanamaker Organ.
David Lennox Smith
(d. 1979) carefully gathered the history of Harris and
his contemporaries and Orpha Ochse has updated Smith’s
research with the help of colleagues Manuel Rosales,
Kevin Gilchrist, Jim Lewis, and Jack Bethards to include
an annotated opus list, listings of organ builders from
the Los Angeles City Directories, many stoplists and
photographs, and technical details.