Woolsey Hall, Yale University

Woolsey Hall is an American 2,650-seats concert hall and the largest auditorium at Yale University, built in 1901 and located on the campus' Hewitt Quadrangle in New Haven, Connecticut. The hall was erected as a part of the Bicentennial Buildings complex (also including the Memorial Rotunda and the University Commons), designed by the Carrère and Hastings firm. Woolsey hosts concerts, performances, Yale University School Of Music' organ recitals, and various university ceremonies such as the annual freshman convocation, senior baccalaureate, and presidential inaugurations. The building is named for Theodore Dwight Woolsey, President of Yale from 1846 to 1871. The Newberry Memorial Organ at Woolsey Hall is one of the largest and most famous symphonic organs in the world. It contains 197 ranks and 166 stops comprising 12,617 pipes. The original organ was built by the Hutchings-Votey Organ Company of Boston in 1902. The instrument was expanded twice, by J.W. Steere & Son (1905) from Springfield, MA and the Skinner Organ Company of Boston (1927–28) as Opus 722, under the direction of Ernest M. Skinner and his recently appointed superintendent from England, G. Donald Harrison. The completed organ reflects the combined skills of many talented makers, all overseen by university organist Harry Benjamin Jepson and funded by the family of John Stoughton Newberry. In 2012, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music invited A. Thompson-Allen Company to restore Newberry Organ section-by-section.