The Philadelphia Orchestra recently announced it had received a $5 million gift from the Wyncote Foundation to support programming that will highlight the Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ in the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall. The five-year initiative will include performances of concertos and other symphonic works featuring the pipe organ, recitals, special events and the commissioning of new music for pipe organ.
This Saturday on A Tempo (8/26 at 7 pm), host Rachel Katz will take a look at that project and the instrument (the largest mechanical-action concert hall pipe organ in the U.S.) in conversations with Jeremy Rothman, the orchestra's vice president for artistic planning, and organist and philanthropist Frederick R. Haas, who will serve as artistic advisor to the initiative.