Pump up the Volume 08 May 2013
It’s midnight Friday. Finney Chapel is dark except for the brightly colored lights glowing on the C.B.Fisk Opus 116 organ that rests just above the stage. It is here that organ majors perform for the Friday Night Organ Pump featuring a musical repertoire that ranges from traditional to the playful. Earlier participants described the concert as an opportunity to mix serious organ literature with theatrical lunacy. Guests often lay flat on the stage to feel the vibrations of this grand instrument.
Established by students in 1982, the original purpose for the Organ Pump was to present the organ as an instrument independent of religious services and to have a good time. Friday Night Organ Pump includes performances by non-organ majors and features skits and musical-based improv groups.
Photograph by Dale Preston ’83
