The Grand Organ in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall was completed in 1979.
Designed and built by Australian organ builder Ronald Sharp, the instrument was commissioned while the Opera House itself was still under construction. Its mechanical tracker action links the keyboards to the organ’s valves, preserving a direct physical connection between the performer and the pipes. The project was technically ambitious because of the instrument’s enormous scale.
The Grand Organ has five manuals, 131 speaking stops and about 10,000 pipes. It is widely described as the world’s largest mechanical tracker-action pipe organ. The organ’s contract was awarded in 1969, but the instrument was not finished until six years after the Opera House opened in 1973.
Completion in 1979 is sometimes confused with the building’s opening year, 1973, or with the date of its first recital. The Department of Public Works handed the completed organ to the Opera House Trust on 30 May 1979, and its opening recital followed in June. A major electronic refit took place in 2002, but the instrument’s musical specification remained unchanged.