On June 7, 1925, waves of summer heat, applause and prayer filled UF’s University Auditorium, and “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” reverberated through the rafters as the university’s Andrew Anderson Memorial Pipe Organ blew the hymn through its 4,101 alloy pipes for the organ’s dedication concert.

One hundred years after the grandiose instrument filling the balcony of the auditorium made its debut, faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members will celebrate the pipe organ’s centennial birthday this year on Jan. 23-26.

Various events for music lovers of all ages aim to showcase not only the history of the university organ’s enduring past as the heartbeat of music at the campus’s center, but its legacy still influencing students today.

The UF Pipe Organ Centennial will feature organ demonstrations, historical presentations from UF faculty, hands-on activities for kids, silent movie accompaniments, a hymn festival and both organ and carillon performances.

Current UF music students will premiere new organ compositions while faculty and alumni recreate pieces from the organ’s founding era.

“I think the fact that the university has continued this pipe organ in use for 100 years is really significant,” said Willis Bodine, UF Professor of Music emeritus whose career as the university’s second organist and carillonneur spanned 44 years. “The students can come today and find a fine musical instrument that they can continue their studies with and be inspired by.”

The machinations of a campus organ started in tandem with UF’s plans to build a comprehensive administrative complex in 1922.

Similar to the Wescott Building on Florida State University’s campus—where then UF President Albert Murphree had also been president—the complex would house faculty offices, a military department, museum, memorial room for students killed in World War I and an auditorium.

However, due to limited funding, only the auditorium portion was built in the Collegiate Gothic style popular at that time. But still strongly believing that a campus organ would cultivate “high traits of character and refinement” in his students, insufficient funds didn’t stop Murphree’s dreams of installing one.

“He contacted a philanthropist in St. Augustine, Andrew Anderson,” Bodine said. “He brought Dr. Anderson over to the auditorium. They walked through the building…and finally, Dr. Anderson offers the university $50,000. That doesn’t seem like a lot to us, but that’s a million dollars today. And for this young institution in this poor orange grove in North Central Florida, that’s a million-dollar gift.”

After multiple visits to organ factories in New York and correspondence with major American organists, Bodine said Murphree’s Skinner organ built over the next year and a half was one of the finest organs in the country at that time.

In September 1925, at just 19 years old, UF student and nephew of Albert Murphree, Claude Murphree, became the university’s first organist. Claude’s weekly Sunday afternoon recitals attracted heavy attendance, and he maintained two half-hour radio broadcasts every weekday on WHBM after also performing the first-ever radio broadcast from Gainesville.

American composer John Phillip Sousa visited UF and said he “would not be surprised to hear of Claude being one of the famous organists of the country someday.”

But even as accomplished as Claude’s organ playing was, it was stifled under five layers of gold and blue-green velvet curtains.

Following Claude’s death at the age of 52 in 1958, 24-year-old Bodine arrived on UF’s campus in 1959 all the way from Texas after accepting the job over the phone as the new university organist. But when he walked inside University Auditorium for the first time, he couldn’t find the organ.

There was the organ console with the instrument’s keyboards, stops—a part controlling the style of the organ’s sound—and foot pedalboards. But no organ pipes.

“I found the switch, turned it on, played a note,” Bodine said. “I heard it, but I couldn’t see it. So I stuck a pencil in the key and started on my trip around [the board], and I finally found the organ up in the loft behind five layers of velvet curtains.”

As impractical as the curtains were for keeping the instrument in tune and in proper working condition, the university had no other choice if it wanted to aesthetically cover up all the organ’s working parts.

Although the original design called for an organ screen that would’ve made the instrument look just like the Mormon Tabernacle’s, the screen was left unfinished due to insufficient funding.

“They had a three-pronged fundraising deal,” Bodine said. “One prong was the swimming pool, one prong was the basketball house that was under construction, and the other prong was the organ screen. As history would tell us, the swimming pool was built, the basketball house was completed, and the organ screen did not have any money. So what they did was they hung five layers of velour curtains in front of the organ.”

Finally in 1960, the curtains were taken down after much insistence from Bodine, and a new era for the UF music department began.

A $95,000, multi-year organ renovation replaced, installed and tuned parts of the instrument damaged from decades of exposure due to a leaky roof, direct sunlight and bug infestations concealed by the curtains.

After the instrument was briefly removed in the 1970s to install air conditioning in the auditorium, Bodine designed the organ’s layout as seen today with its more than 5,300 pipes.

“After the organ was back in, we continued the progress and continued with superb organ students that have been here over the years,” Bodine said. “The University finally established a graduate program in music, so we were able to attract graduate students in organ and those people are all over the world now. I have a student in Australia, a student in South Africa, I have students all over the country, as well as in Florida.”

In 2003, Dr. Laura Ellis stepped in to serve as professor of organ and carillon, associate director of the UF School of Music and the third organist in university history after Bodine’s retirement.

With around 500 students in UF’s music department, Ellis teaches 10 carillon and 10 organ students. Even though a background in piano helps, Ellis said good coordination and reading comprehension are necessary skills for developing new organists because of the physical complexity of playing the instrument and registering its literature.

The music department often partners with the theater department to create performances combining organ music and acting, such as “Phantom of the Opera.”

Ellis said that although church organs mostly popularized the instrument, organ music is still relevant in a society like today’s where church attendance is dwindling. She said having an organ at the center of campus helps expose students to it while uniting all different backgrounds of sacred music.

“Having it in a place like this, any student whether they’re religious, not religious, they can see that it exists,” she said. “One of my organ students is Jewish and he kind of re-found his Jewishness last year with all the stuff that went on. For his recital, I found him Jewish organ composers and he played some of that, and you could just sort of see him [take pride] because it was part of himself, he could share with everybody.”

Along with a presentation from one of Claude Murphree’s descendants, both Bodine and Ellis will give presentations and performances at the UF Pipe Organ Centennial celebration. For a complete schedule of events, click here.

Throughout the rest of the year, UF’s music department will also host various other organ alumni and guest recitals, a Celebration of Women Organ Composers on March 6 and the annual Halloween Spooktacular on Oct. 31.