On the Trail of the Gartner Auditorium
By Walter Holtkamp, Jr.
The 1922 McMyler organ, following its initial revision by my father, Walter Holtkamp, Sr., in 1933, became a work-in-progress. As funds became available to Walter Blodgett, curator of musical arts, we would change or modify a voice in the organ. It was quite piece-meal, depending upon the largesse of individuals at any given time.
Around June 1962 Walter Blodgett told me that a man had left some money to the museum specifically for the McMyler organ and organ recitals. It was said that he came to organ recitals and enjoyed them, but he had never made himself known to Mr. Blodgett. Wisely, Sherman Lee proposed using the funds to incorporate an 800 seat concert hall into the proposed education wing. The museum badly needed a concert hall for several reasons. First, the existing chamber music hall was too small and acoustically deficient to be of real use. Second, the location of the McMyler organ in the interior garden court projected music into the galleries. This was fine during scheduled recitals but when visiting organists spent hours practicing the music was a distraction to many.