Hauptwerk Tampa
Symphonic Organ
We are glad to announce that Westchase Music School will add a Symphonic Organ based on the Hauptwerk software and Vienna Symphonic Sample Library. The Organ will be placed in the LAB to the left of the Composer Station and will comprise 4 Manuals (keyboards with 61 keys each) and a standard AGO Pedalboard. (AGO = American Guild of Organists).
The organ will be able to produce regular Pipe Organ sounds as well as expanded instruments such as strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, choir and more. It will have 12 channel surround sound with a heavy duty sub woofer that can produce bass tones down to 16 Hertz.
The organ can be played by itself or it can remotely be controlled from the composer station. Compositions in Finale can be routed via MIDI to the symphonic organ. This will allow a more realistic and immersive sound experience.
The instrument will be open to all qualified Westchase Music School students. Moreover, pipe organ lesson will be given as part of the curriculum.
Hauptwerk is a computer program that can reproduce complex pipe organ sounds. The name Hauptwerk comes from the German expression for the main part of the pipe section. Currently there are more than 100 sample sets available from various churches all over the world. Our organ will carry some of the finest instruments such as the Lauresnkerk in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Sample sets include recordings of every single pipe of the organ, captured with high quality microphones. The depicted Laurenskerk organ has about 7600 pipes.
It is not without reason that the pipe organ is called the Queen of Instruments.
In addition to the pipe organ sample sets we will also implement instruments from the Vienna Symphonic Library.
With more than six millions of samples and an unprecedented variety of articulations with nuanced details, the Vienna Symphonic Library helps you create the most realistic renderings of your musical ideas. With Vienna Symphonic Library products you can go anywhere, from solo
pieces to large cinematic orchestras, from intimate chamber music to jazz, pop and dance, from the baroque to the avant-garde.
This means that that any Symphonic Instrument or group of instruments can be assigned to one of the 4 manuals or pedal and even played in combination with Hauptwerk. Moreover, the organ will have 80 additional control buttons that can be used for instrument combinations and expression variations.
The Symphonic Organ is also an excellent tool to create a movie sound track which will be an expanded activity for all our fervent student composers.
Hauptwerk Tampa is a very exciting music project that opens the door for many aural impressions that were only possible with the use of expensive orchestras and huge pipe organs in selected churches. Now those sounds will be literally at your fingertips.
This website documents the Build and Application of our Symphonic Organ. It also includes how our students interact with the new instrument. For questions or comments please use our Contact Form.