Organ Day at the Kimmel Center - 6abc Loves the Arts

If you're looking for a fun way to spend those hot summer days, The Kimmel Center has a full slate of family friendly events on tap-everything from music to theatre and dance.

June 13th is Organ Day. It's the Kimmel Center's 5th annual day-long celebration of Verizon Hall's Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ. With nearly 7,000 pipes it is the largest mechanically based organ in a U.S. concert hall.

"We really wanted a way to showcase what the Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ could really do," explains Jay Wahl, Artistic Director for Programming at the Kimmel Center, "It can make sounds like flutes and bells as well as sounding like horns and woodwind instruments. It really has a lot of different colors."

The day is jam-packed with games, performances and activities to entertain hundreds of kids and their families.

"You'll hear music from The Lord of the Rings trilogy on the organ. There will be story time with kids," says Wahl, "We're going to read The Little Engine that Could with some actors. There will be a sing-a-long; they'll sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and at the end of that, they'll get an interactive opportunity to touch the organ, to make sounds to see how they can actually get the organ to make noise."

And Wahl says the summer months give the Kimmel Center the opportunity to let kids of all ages experience musical theater, "there's not a lot of opportunities for kids who are three and four years old to experience musical theater in a very interactive, direct way for them."

The program is called Grow UP Great and it's held one Saturday a month.

"We're reaching kids who are, you know just walking and just encountering the world, just reaching out to touch things. So we want them to understand that music and theater is part of the world they're growing up into," says Wahl.

Organ Day runs from 11am-5pm on June 13th in The Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall.

You can find details on that and other Kimmel Center programming at www.TheArtsinPhilly.org.