SPOKANE, Wash. — The century-old Looff Carrousel in Riverfront Park will soon be singing a new tune.
For decades, the Carrousel’s band organ has been out of commission, but a few passionate Spokanites are working to bring the music back again.
“What kind of magic can come out of that machine,” said Nathan Miller.
Miller has been an operator at the Carrousel for nearly 10 years and has never heard the band organ play, not even when he was a child riding one of the iconic horses.
One of the people working to restore the band organ is local “Spokane Carrousel Expert,” Bette Largent.
“The minute that band organ kicks in, it’s just a different atmosphere. It’s amazing,” she said.
Largent and the other volunteers worked to retrofit broken band organ parts and restore air pipes. The final step is to digitize the instrument.
The band organ currently plays off a paper roll that reads holes in the paper to play the notes. It will soon be converted to operate off a midi-file, which acts like a CD player that plugs into the band organ to make it play.
“If it sounds anything close to what it was in its original state, then I think a lot of that magic will just come together for it,” said Largent.
The band organ is set to play by Spring 2025.
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