At the Neel Performing Arts Center, there is a giant pipe organ. Crafted from steel and wood, it takes over the rear wall of the auditorium. It is a work of precision and mass. To play it, you have to open a door and walk inside it.

Unplayed, it is static, decorative, in the way that the architecture of an altar is made to impress and silence an audience. It is merely a series of containers. It is a conductor of potential sound, awaiting molecules of air to push.

How loud is it? I did not hear it play tonight. I imagined the organ music of Bach or Messaien, a surging mash of chords, a coating from head to soul.