The Astoria Centre has an extensive archive covering the history and development of the Cinema Organ here in the UK. There are many original copies of vintage journals, books, magazines and newsletters pertaining to the Cinema Organ. The collection also includes thousands of photographs of Cinema Organs in cinemas and in preservation, together with many letters of correspondence from some of the great Cinema Organists of the past. Many of the original Cinema Organists were also published composers and arrangers. Here at the Astoria Centre, we have an extensive archive of compositions and arrangements by leading Cinema Organists, together with a large collection of vintage sheet music and music books, featuring popular music of the 20th Century. The sound of the Cinema Organ has been well documented over the years and the Astoria Collection houses a substantial collection of 78rpm records, LP records, cassette tapes, reel to reel tapes of Cinema Organ broadcasts and CD’s, all featuring Cinema Organs of the past and present. We are fortunate to have been very kindly given a large amount of recordings and memorabilia from the estate of the late well-known Cinema Organ historian and broadcaster - Frank Hare, who was a long-standing friend of the Penistone Cinema Organ Trust and the Astoria Centre.
If you have any Cinema Organ photographs, recordings, models or other related items that you would like to donate in order to be preserved and well cared for, please contact us and we are only too happy to include these in the archive as much as possible. Quite a substantial amount of the archive is requiring cataloguing or digitising. If you feel that you may be able to help with this or interested in other forms of volunteering, please contact us.