From tonight’s Kimmel Center blog:

As you may have read in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, in the finest tradition of Pay to Play, we’re holding an event this Saturday from 1pm to 5pm, where anyone, regardless of skill level, can come to get a hands on experience at the stage console of the new Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ–$25 for one minute and $75 for five minutes. Come join us, play, listen, mill about, give a few minutes as a gift to that budding or aspiring young organist…and we’ll have a couple of surprise celebrity guests as well!

This is one of the more clever fund-raising ideas I’ve heard in a while—and that’s coming from someone in the “begging biz.”

It’s almost enough to make me take out my old organ shoes and my copy of Orgelbuchlein and remember what it was like to have an Aeolian-Skinner and a Fisk available to me, six days a week.

Or maybe I’ll just go witness the other players.

Image credit: Evelyn Taylor, from the Kimmel’s flickr set.