There is now just one year to go until the newly reinstalled Royal Festival Hall organ is revealed to the public during the ‘Pull Out All The Stops Festival’. To mark this event, London's Southbank Centre is launching an appeal for personal memories of the historic instrument.

Stories and recollections will be collected over the next 12 months and will form an integral part of an installation in the Royal Festival Hall foyer during March 2014. They will also be made available online. A number of leading musicians have already contributed their memories of the organ, including London Philharmonic principal conductor Vladimir Jurowski, conductor Marin Alsop, cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, and organists Dame Gillian Weir and Olivier Latry.

‘I remember the Royal Festival Hall organ as a presence of authority, demanding the highest standards of those who performed before it,’ said Jurowski. ‘It always brought a sense of occasion to performances; when in use, it is remarkable machinery, when not; it is a piece of art. The efforts to restore the Royal Festival Hall organ must be praised; too often we see such cultural relics falling into disarray.’

The organ's reinstallation will be celebrated with a wide-ranging learning and participation programme to take place during the 'Pull Out All The Stops Festival' and the following 12 months. Schools in Durham and London are documenting the restoration of the organ through film, photographs, articles, and interviews with staff, while hundreds of young musicians and singers will also have the opportunity to perform a new commission from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.

You can email your Royal Festival Hall organ stories to organmemories@southbankcentre.co.uk or call +44 (0)20 7082 8058. For full details visit www.pulloutallthestops.org.