The Organ’s Long-Awaited Restoration
Two pipes of the front facade have spent the last year being renovated across the country.
Gregory Eaton in the Bates Pipe Organ. All photos by Bailey Evertson.
In the Bates Recital Hall at the Butler School of Music sits a Visser-Rowland tracker organ, a gigantic instrument with over 5,000 pipes. Last week, two of those pipes, which have been missing from the front facade for the last year and a half, were returned to the College of Fine Arts after being repaired in Ohio and driven back to Texas.
In 2019, when celebrated organist Gregory Eaton joined the Butler School of Music, he made it his mission not only to revamp the organ program but the actual instrument itself. Last year the pipes were officially sent off to be repaired, and are now back in their rightful place front and center.
“Now we’re going to be presenting a pristine look for the front of the hall, which is really a great step forward,” said Gregory Eaton, a lecturer in organ and harpsichord in BSOM. “And because of the work that a generous donor has allowed us to do, including these pipes, the organ is sounding better than it has in probably eight or 10 years.”
“When I sat down, I could use stops that had not been usable for several years and I could finally get all the sounds that this organ was meant to make,” said Eaton. “I couldn’t stop playing even though someone else had the hall reserved and I had to get out so they could have a rehearsal. So it’s a very exciting thing for me.”
Eaton will be playing the newly restored organ as part of the Butler Holiday Concert on December 5 and 6. Tickets are available here.
