Manuel da Costa looks after the biggest organ in the southern hemisphere. The 68-year old has the rare privilege of maintaining the Grand Organ, a magnificent confection of soaring pipes, pillars and plasterwork which dominates Sydney's 19th-century town hall.
It's a formidable job. The organ boasts around 9,000 individual pipes. Some are the size of smokestacks, more than six metres tall, while others are barely bigger than a pencil.
'It's just as it was when it was built in the 1880s,' says Mr da Costa, who emigrated to Australia from Portugal in 1980. 'The facade has been refurbished but the inside remains exactly the same.'
Built in London, the Grand Organ was shipped to Australia and installed in 1890.
It was then the largest organ in the world - the embodiment of colonial Sydney's civic pride. It was, boasted city councillors, 'the king of instruments', a technical and musical triumph.
The whole extraordinary ensemble is controlled from the console, which consists of a seat for the organist, a row of wooden pedals and five keyboards, stacked on top of each other.