page_title: Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Notre Dame)
section_title: Organ
hierarchical_section_title: Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Notre Dame) / Interior / Organ
caption_attribution_description: English: Campus of the University of Notre Dame
context_page_description: The Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, is a Roman Catholic church on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, also serving as the mother church of the Congregation of Holy Cross in the United States. The neo-gothic church has 44 large stained glass windows and murals completed over a 17-year period by the Vatican painter Luigi Gregori. The basilica bell tower is 230 feet high, making it the tallest University chapel in America. It is a contributing building in Notre Dame's historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Basilica is a major tourist attraction in Northern Indiana, and is visited annually by more than 50,000 tourists.
context_section_description: The first Sacred Heart Church had a small reed organ in the 1850s. In 1865 Father Edward Sorin approved its replacement with a hand-pumped organ of 1,500 pipes. In 1875 Derrick and Felgemeker of Erie installed a 2,000 pipe organ inside the new and still incomplete Sacred Heart Church, which was eventually brought inside the completed church. In 1961 university president Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh approved the addition 300 pipes to the organ. On April 2, 1978, a new organ is installed, donated by Marjorie O'Malley and built by the Holtkamp Organ Company of Cleveland, Ohio. It debuted at a dedication Mass celebrated by Hesburgh and a recital performed by Professor Michael Schneider of Cologne, Germany. Professor Craig Cramer joined Notre Dame's Department of Music in the fall of 1981 and inherited department chair Calvin Bower's charge to form the organ performance program.
  In late 2006, Campus Ministry formed a committee to consider replacement of the basilica organ, headed by Dr. Gail Walton, the basilica's director of music since 1988. The committee performed a nationwide search, and in December 2006 it traveled to Columbus, Ohio, for the dedication of the new Paul Fritts organ in Saint Joseph Cathedral and decided to commission the new organ to Fritts, which became Fritt's second commission from Notre Dame. Previously, Paul Fritts and Company Organ Builders of Tacoma, Washington, had finished a 35-stop organ, also an O’Malley gift, designed in the northern German tradition, for the Reyes Organ and Choral Hall of the new DeBartolo Performing Arts Center in 2004. The Great Recession of 2008 halted the project by taking a hit on the university endowment and benefactions, and the idea of replacing the basilica organ was tabled indefinitely. The project was further dealt a blow by the death of its foremost champion Gail Walton in February 2010. Yet, in the fall of 2010, the university approves a plan to commission a new organ for the basilica and the begins to search for a donor. As decided previously, organ maker Paul Fritts was commissioned with the project and began to design and authorizes pipe making in 2012 before signing the contract. Work on the case in Tacoma began in 2013. The project eventually called for a four-manual instrument with 70 stops, 5,164 pipes and a case inspired by Dutch masterpieces, and it was to become Fritts’ magnum opus. The basilica closed in Christmas 2013 for the first phase of the organ project, the a 44-day replacement of the church carpeting with 25,000 slate-colored porcelain tiles to improve acoustics. In the meanwhile, a third Fritts commission, sponsored by Denis ’67 and Susan McCusker, sees a studio organ designed in 2014 for the Walton Choir Rehearsal Hall in Coleman-Morse Center.
  On December 28, 2015, the Holtkamp organs played its last song, Silent Night, before its dismantling started the next morning. The organ pipes were donated to the reconstruction of a local parish, Pius XI in Granger Indiana. In October 2015, Fritts loans the church the fourth organ  once the Holtkamp is removed. Work commences on reinforcing the choir loft’s concrete and adding steel support structures to the foundation. During the installation of the new organ, the basilica choirs will sing next to the interim organ in the west transept. 
  The new organ, named for benefactors Wayne and Diana Murdy, was transported onto a pair of tractor-trailers to the basilica on Sunday, July 31 2016. By end of August 2016, the façade and case was completed, and Fritts Company beginned the process of tuning and voicing the pipes and connecting the organ's key action, stop actiwind worksorks and electrical wiring. The organ's first full performance test occurred during the annual Blue Mass honoring police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel on October 6, with the tuning of last rank of pipes in the following weeks. It was finished on schedule for Christmas 2016.  The new four-manual 70-stop Murdy Family Organ was designed and built by Paul Fritts & Company Organ Builders as its Opus 37. It has 4 keyboards, 70 stop
caption: The Murdy family organ, the basilica's fifth organ, installed in 2016
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