New organ makes music for St John's centenary

Australia’s newest pipe organ will have completed a 16,000km journey when it’s played for the first time at UQ on Sunday.

The St John’s College chapel will be home to the unique $400,000 instrument, which was built in Northampton and has been generously gifted by donors linked to deceased businessman Edward Cripps.

Mr Cripps was an undergraduate of St John’s College, Cambridge, and his family has made significant benefactions to churches, colleges and schools in England and Australia.

The two manual and pedal baroque organ will take pride of place at a special service this weekend to celebrate St John’s centenary and induct the college’s new Honorary Fellows. The college was founded in 1911 and admitted its first students at Kangaroo Point in 1912.

Celebrated Australian composer Dr Colin Brumby has written a special piece of music for the occasion, which will see Professor Ian Frazer, Dr David Malouf, Senator George Brandis and John Allpass inducted as fellows. Duncan Robinson, a Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and the Master of Magdalene College, will deliver the address.

Long-serving college Warden Reverend Professor John Morgan said the music was based on chapter 15 of St John’s Gospel and set for organ, a small orchestra and full choir.

“It is a beautiful and joyous piece,” Professor Morgan said.

“It begins ‘O I am the vine and you are the branches’ and concludes ‘love one another I ask of you’. It has been specially written to be celebratory and spiritually inspiring.”

St John’s has a long and distinguished music program, with student Katie Lill the college’s current musician-in-residence. Ms Lill is also the James Warner Organ Scholar. The new instrument, to be dedicated by Archbishop Aspinall, will be used for college services, concerts and recitals, and replaces the previous organ, which was built 20 years ago.

Since welcoming its first residents, the college has been a home away from home for almost 5,500 students in addition to staff and their families.

In 1911 at the Diocesan Synod, Archbishop St. Clair Donaldson welcomed the opening of Queensland University (as it was then known), and spoke of the need for a residential college. By the end of the year St John’s was founded and affiliated with the University together with Emmanuel College. There are 11 different colleges located at the St Lucia and Gatton campuses today.

“Our beginnings were humble – in houses at Kangaroo Point and our finances precarious. It was a venture of faith, and still is,” Professor Morgan said.

Defining moments in college history include a student prank which briefly shut down the Story Bridge in 1947. On Good Friday in 2005, a fire destroyed the first residential wing constructed on the St Lucia site, which was rebuilt following a fundraising drive involving former residents and the wider University community.

2011 also marks three decades of service for Professor Morgan, a noted scholar in applied ethics who received a Doctor of the University honoris causa in 2007 for his contributions to UQ and the wider community.

Media: Reverend Professor John Morgan (07 3842 6600, john.morgan@uq.edu.au) or Cameron Pegg at UQ Communications (07 3365 2049, c.pegg@uq.edu.au)