Updated through online information from Scot Huntington. -- This organ was designed by Dr. Charles Finney (1912-1995), organ professor and Fine Arts chair, in consultation with Walter Holtkamp, Sr.

Discussions related to the construction of the new Fine Arts building and chapel began as early as 1956, with Finney and Holtkamp fully involved in the planning from the beginning. What began as a plain rectangular auditorium eventually evolved into an acoustically-advantageous performance space after Holtkamp and the Boston acoustical firm of Bolt, Berenak and Newman became actively involved in the design process.

Fundraising for the organ included a letter sent by Dr. Finney on school letterhead to the mailing list of the AGO to solicit financial support, stating that after long a prayerful consideration, God had spoken to them through prayer and guided them to Holtkamp as the best choice to build this important instrument. This solicitation raised about one-quarter of the total amount needed.

This was one of the last organs designed by Walter Holtkamp Sr. (1960) before his untimely death in February 1962, and one of the first instruments finished by his son and successor in May of that year. Finney related that Holtkamp did not favor large instruments, and this organ was about as large an instrument as he was willing to build-- anything larger was unnecessary frills or duplication. Finney was reknowned for his stirring last verse hymn reharmonizations and had hoped to include a chamade Trumpet for lining out hymn tunes, but Holtkamp refused, stating that such stops were loud and vulgar, and of limited musical usefulness. Finney also desired two 32-foot stops which Holtkamp omitted for lack of funds and available space, and substituted his signature compound Cornet 32 instead. Positive string and celeste stops were omitted as well, on philosophical grounds. Holtkamp did not favor tremulants in general, but Finney managed to get one provided for the Swell division.

Typical for Holtkamp, the organ is functionally exposed in a gallery at the right front corner of this all-purpose chapel/performance hall in an especially striking design with the usual Holtkamp flare for contrasting materials, color, and motion. The Great and Positive divisions are at the railing, on the right and left sides of the gallery respectively, with the movable console between them, the shallow Swell division is stacked in a large expression enclosure directly behind the Great set against the reflective rear wall, and the Pedal division along with the unit Dulzian and Quintadena ranks spans the remaining width of the gallery to the left of the Swell enclosure. At the time I knew the organ in the late 1960s, the combination action was set by remote setterboard, but I'm told this has been recently updated to a solid-state system with multiple memory levels.

In October 1989, the college alumni newspaper, the Houghten Milieu announced that at commencement services held that summer, the Holtkamp instrument was henceforth officially named the Dr. Charles H. Finney Organ, in recognition of his four decades of distinguished service to the school in multiple capacities including as organ instructor and chapel organist, and who was at that time the Emeritus Fine Arts Division Chair. He was also named Organist in Residence as part of the naming recognition, a position he held until his death.

Updated through online information from Taylor Koepka.

Identified through information published in John Ferguson's Walter Holtkamp: American Organ Builder (DMA treatise, Eastman School of Music, 1976). Although neither Votteler-Holtkamp-Sparling nor their successor Holtkamp Organ Co. assigned Opus numbers to their instruments, this organ was identified in factory documents as Job number 1666. That number appears here as the Opus number of this instrument.