At the stroke of midnight, on the Friday night of each Halloween weekend (Halloweekend), Oberlin’s Finney Chapel is packed tight with costumed students. Chatter and raucous yells fill the air just beforehand, but at midnight the lights in Finney Chapel switch off, and the cavernous space echoes and shakes with the notes of the organ. This bizarre, astounding, and uniquely Oberlin phenomenon takes place each year, and is known as Organ Pump.
This year, I attended with three of my friends and had to make sure to be early to the concert so we could get first-floor seats. The opening piece for this year’s Halloween organ pump was the overture to Phantom of the Opera. Each of the three times I’ve attended organ pump concerts, the repertoire has represented a mix of iconic tunes like that one, and gorgeous sonatas the organ majors have been preparing all semester. I remember that last, year, for instance, they played the overture from another haunting musical, in which I've been lucky enough to perform while here: Sweeney Todd. The recognizable piece played this year was a particular treat, though, as it was performed by the organ alongside a posse of stringed instruments, creating a fuller orchestral experience.
The organ pump concert actually takes place during both the fall and spring semester in Oberlin, but with the apt placement of the fall iteration near Halloween, it tends to be much more well attended. Organ pump is no traditional classical concert. Amped-up on Halloweekend energy and undoubtedly some other things as well, the crowd of Obies (our name for Oberlin students, in case you didn’t know) I have seen at each experience has been full of verve and hollering their applause for the rise and fall of the organ notes played. Other entertainment, from Q&As with the select group of organ majors in the conservatory, to candy tossed into the audience’s ravenous masses, make this special concert vivid, fun, and impactful for every Obie who attends. I’ve witnessed a break in the organ pieces for a guest-starring, Obertones a capella performance, and a foam pool noodle sword fight staged before the cheering fans. The setup I’ve seen on the Finney Chapel stage in front of the organ has included an imposing throne and spooky decor including large, hanging skeletons. Nearly everyone, both audience-member and performer, is dressed in their Halloween costume for Organ Pump, or at least in an on-theme, foreboding cape. The show this year featured a student dressed in a strange black and blue pinhead costume, and decorated with taped-on candy. By the end of the night, all the candy had been ripped off the costume and thrown to the audience, and the organ majors not currently playing pretended to carry the “dead” candy man offstage as the students engaged in a sing-along: The “Oh Christmas Tree” tune played on the organ with parodied lyrics to mourn the candy man (the song was now titled “Oh Candy Man”) placed in everyone’s Organ Pump programs.
Each time that I’ve attended Organ Pump, I’ve been enamored by the craft of the organ-major students. The opening note, played in darkness, has always made for a bone-chilling slice of creepy spirit, a window for me into a gothic manor in which Dracula might be lurking to suck our blood around any corner. At the same time, this opening note, and the room-rattling tones of the campus’s largest organ played throughout the concert, have instilled wonder in me and many of my fellow attendees. The event makes it seem a shame that historical instruments like our organ aren’t appreciated in their splendor more often. It makes me think of all the time the group of organ majors spend working on their abilities with the organ outside of the one concert per semester when the student body makes them the stars of the show. After all, while I’ve seen organ players as part of the orchestra and as the direct accompaniment for my choral pieces when I’ve performed through the college myself, it isn’t every day that the students who spend most all of their time creating music at the pipes have a large audience to cheer them on. Thus, it’s no wonder that the whole group of perhaps ten to fifteen majors plays in the concert, and it’s a joy that we can all bring our Oberlin enthusiasm to bolster the spirits of the musicians performing.
Every Organ Pump at Oberlin ends the same way as the one this semester did, and it is one of the most uniquely-Obie phenomena to exist. During the last piece of the night, as the clock nears one am, the audience makes their way up to the Finney Chapel stage and lies down against the wood. Everyone then feels the vibrations of the Organ through the stage rattling through them as one. This time, I had the best spot on that crowded wooden platform I’ve had yet. I pressed my joints and my back against the stage floor and felt the reverberation of organ notes within me deeply, viscerally. Leaving Organ Pump this year, as every year, I felt invigorated, if a bit sleepy, from all that went on. I exchanged smiles and comments with my friends who had enjoyed Organ Pump too before we retired, exhausted, to each of our dorms. As in previous years, when I walked out of Finney Chapel this time, I couldn’t wait until the next Halloween weekend, when I plan to go to Organ Pump once more.
