Murray M. Harris
Murray M. Harris ( * 1866 in Illinois, † 1922) was an American organ builder. He is regarded as the "father of organ-building " in the U.S. West.
Life
Harris was born in 1866 in Illinois, the son of a Presbyterian minister. 1884 the family moved to Los Angeles, where Harris was educated at a jeweler and watchmaker. In 1888 he married the daughter of a high government official and moved shortly afterwards to Boston. Here he worked as a piano tuner and learned at the same time with George Hutchings organ building the craft. At the same time learned here and Ernest Martin Skinner. Skinner opened up here in the improvement of the electro- pneumatic action out while Harris is rather specialized in the intonation.
1894 Harris returned back to Los Angeles to build there in Hutchings ' order some organ. Soon after, Harris broke away from Hutchings and started his own business in Los Angeles. Harris ' workshop was the first organ workshop in Los Angeles:
" Now this city can produce at such instrument complicated, so artistic and so excellent as to meet competition in the product of east coast manufactors. "
The numerous churches - 1899 there were 154 churches in Los Angeles alone - the rapidly growing city made for an excellent order and Harris was soon regarded as an outstanding organ builder, joined the business sense in a musical. The easy availability of good wood enabled him high quality instruments at affordable prices. Had Harris started in 1894 with just one employee, he was able in 1899 to modernize its production facilities; in 1901 his company had grown fourfold. In the same year Harris built his first three-manual organ for the First Methodist Church in Los Angeles, on the Clarence Eddy for the inauguration played three sold-out concerts.
With the growing success, the demand grew for skilled workers who were familiar with the technical innovations of organ building. Harris had been built so far only partly mechanical and pneumatic tracker action, but where the size of the organ was limited by the constraints of mechanics. The urge of romance for ever- larger instruments so broke the development of electro- pneumatic railway. In their early days were a fire hazard due to short circuits and unreliability the obstacle to their final breakthrough in practice. Harris campaigned why the 51 -year-old William Boone Fleming ( 1849-1940 ), a former employee Hilborne Roosevelt in Philadelphia, at at, regarded as one of the leading figures in the development of electro-pneumatics; with the so-called Fleming system he had first developed a form of electro-pneumatics that are reliable enough for practical use; some of Fleming's instruments still exist at the end of the 20th century and show a functional (albeit portly ) tracker action. The recruitment Flemings led in the area of intonation to a mixing of different cultures sound: Harris had been guided by his teacher Hutchings, Fleming, however, brought the sound characteristics with Roosevelt in Los Angeles.
The first major joint project Harris ' and Flemings in 1901, the organ of the Stanford Memorial Church, which is at the core today. The influence of Roosevelt revealed here as early as the disposition that was almost a carbon copy of Roosevelt's disposition of the organ for the First Presbyterian Church in New York. Since the construction of the organ was completed before the completion of the church building, Harris turned the organ first at the Fifth International Convention of the Epworth League in San Francisco from 18 to July 21, 1901 from.
1903 was one of the workshop already 100 employees and Harris planned in New York to establish a branch office. Wealthy residents on the U.S. West Coast could be installed in large numbers house organs and organs automatic orchestral blank in their homes and yachts at the beginning of the 20th century to let play often light musical fare of specially hired organists to keep them entertained. Harris wanted to participate of this business. In order to draw attention to his company, he planned to build a large organ in St. Louis for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904. As he at the same time received a request to build the organ for the Kansas City Convention Hall with 140 registers, he united both projects: The organ should initially be at the show in St. Louis and are then transported to Kansas.