Organist Stephen Warner discusses the use and history of the pipe organ in movie theaters. “The way a theater organ is set up and laid out and mechanically disposed is quite different and providing a lot of different opportunities for how the organist uses it. It is actually derived from an invention by Robert Hope Jones, who was an English electrical engineer, who came over to the States. And his inventions were kind of absorbed by the industry at that perfect moment when suddenly we needed instruments in movie theaters accompanying films because the theaters were getting bigger. And the piano was not big enough to fill a room. And hiring an orchestra wasn’t an option for every movie house. So, the pipe organ fit the bill, and the pipe organ industry grew and filled that particular market void for almost 20 years.”

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