The Cathedral is home to the Ruffatti Organ with Rodgers console and MX200 Tone Module. As part of the renovation project of 2003, a pipe organ was selected, built, & installed in the Cathedral. It is a 50-rank instrument built in Padua, Italy, by the brothers Ruffatti. Piero & Francesco Ruffatti have created a fine instrument for our worship space, which is enhanced by the buoyant acoustics of the Cathedral. How Ruffatti pipes are made.
The organ features many fine stops, including a specialty stop called the Tromba Pontificale or Pontifical Trumpets, which can be seen and heard as they flank the rose window on the south wall.
The Ruffatti organ, in addition to the 50 ranks of pipes, can expand to more than 400 ranks through digital and midi capabilities.
- Pipes
- Digital alternative voices behind the pipe draw knobs
- Orchestral voices used in combination with digital and/or pipes
- Digital voices sampled from Notre Dame Cathedral and St. Sulpice Cathedrals.
The latter is made possible through the generosity of Maestro Hector Olivera, who donated this new bank of his personal digital samples to the Cathedral. You can hear digitally sampled sounds of the pipes of Notre Dame and St. Sulpice Cathedral organs right here in Kansas City! You can digitally hear the sounds Franck, Vierne, and Widor heard when they composed their masterpieces!
All this is possible through the Roland MX-200 module that enables organ expansion to over 400 ranks. This module has orchestral sounds and other digital sound banks that seamlessly combine the pipe and digital technologies playable on any of the three manuals and pedals. The digital divisions automatically tune to whatever the tuning of the pipes is at any given moment.
The Cathedral's Ruffatti is a unique instrument that amazes and impresses those who hear and play it.
Click here to hear a demonstration of the Ruffatti Pipe Organ performed by Maestro Hector Olivera on his CD “The Artistry of the Pipe Organ.”