Wave-powered organ to hit high notes for Blackpool tourism

Blackpool may be best known for bingo, illuminations and fish and chips by the sea, but now it is to become home to the music of the spheres.

In a strange-but-true collaboration between artists, musicians and engineers, the swell of the ocean is to be harnessed to power an £80,000, 50ft-tall musical sculpture.

The Blackpool High Tide Organ will open on the promenade later this year and perform music when the tide is high by capturing air pressure from the movement of the waves.

Liam Curtin, the artist behind the plan, said it was a development of a musical sculpture he had already built with John Gooding, a fellow artist and inventor, at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. But instead of using pumps to power it, as happens in Manchester, the Blackpool version utilises the sea.

"We've built a whole test rig and tried this out at Blackpool and it does sound like an organ," he said. "The pipes are tuned to the harmonic series [a natural scale] and you get a kind of ambient sound."

Fine-tuning will be possible once the organ is built through valves attached to the organ pipes, which can be adjusted in accordance with the pressure levels created by the water.

Eight pipes go under the promenade and fan out to sea to feed air to the sculpture, which will be made from copper, lead, tin and stainless steel, with an appearance "like that of a fantastic Jules Verne-styled machine".

The idea has won £65,000 of funding from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta), a lottery-funded body that awards grants to promote talent, innovation and creativity.

Jeremy Newton, Nesta's chief executive, said: "We're supporting this unique project as it embraces a number of different disciplines which have collaborated to create an artwork that is truly innovative and which could set new standards in public art. We hope that the High Tide Organ may become a top attraction in Blackpool and become a famous landmark in the region."

Blackpool seafront is being regenerated and the High Tide Organ will go alongside four sculptures already in situ on the South Shore Promenade. Another dozen or more are planned.

Nesta was attracted to the combination of hydraulics, civil and structural engineering, acoustics and sculpture, a rare combination in a public artwork.

But the musical sculpture has also been welcomed by Blackpool Borough Council, whose senior civil engineer, Dick Trevitt, is closely involved, and Lancashire's tourism council, because they believe it could attract visitors to the area. Both bodies have given smaller grants of their own.

Curtin said: "Blackpool has such a progressive council. They've been very encouraging and helpful in its development."

In addition to the aesthetic appeal, the High Tide Organ will be used to explain scientific principles in a programme for schools, and there will be other workshops to discuss the musical principles behind the piece. "People will be able to jam along with it at high tide," Curtin added.

The piece will not have the conventional construction of an organ. Unlike most organs, the pipes will be placed directly on top of each other in two tall columns housed in a curved "reflector", which will concentrate the sound – as much as the wind allows – towards where the audience is expected to stand.

To fend off any possible objections, the reflector will also help to direct the sound away from the rest of the town.