SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Organist Avery Tunningley calls it "a band in a box."
On Sunday, Tunningley played jaunty tunes on Syracuse's Mighty Wurlitzer organ, to accompany the silent films "The Nut" (1921) and "Bare Knees" (1928). The performance kicked off the Empire State Theatre's 2018 season.
About 40 audience members tapped their toes along with the music, enjoying an authentic show right out of the Roaring Twenties at the Art & Home Center on the state fairgrounds.
"When I first heard the organ, I was absolutely thrilled," said Stephen Litzenberger, the president of the Empire State Theatre and Musical Instrument Museum. "It hooked me. To see a...film accompanied by the theater organ takes you back to this time period."
The organ, known back then as a "unit orchestra," was first installed in Syracuse's RKO Keith's theater downtown in 1925. There, it was played for decades alongside silent movies and stage shows.
Today, the Landmark Theatre occupies that space. After RKO Keith's theater collapsed in 1967, the organ was moved and reinstalled in the Empire Theatre at the New York State fairgrounds, where it has remained ever since.
The Mighty Wurlitzer organ's buttons produce dozens of instrumental and cinematic sounds.
When Tunningley presses a "xylophone" button, the audience doesn't hear a recorded sound. The key touch sends an electric pulse that causes a real mallet to strike a xylophone backstage.
When he presses a pedal, an actual gong is beaten, and sirens or train horns are blared. Several sounds match the actions of a silent movie.
He can also produce the sounds of the castanets, cathedral chimes, clarinets, piccolos, harps, snare drums, tubas or a glockenspiel, from his seat at the Wurlitzer.
All those chambers, pipes and musical pieces take up the space of a three-car garage backstage at the Empire Theatre.
"It all just barely fit in here," Litzenberger said.
At 93 years old, the organ still sounds loud and strong, but it requires regular maintenance and tuning.
Linzenberger hopes enough people will care for the Wurlitzer so it can continue being enjoyed through its 100th anniversary and beyond.
"The people here are aging and are dying off," he said. "I am very concerned about the future of this organ. This is very important because there's only a few of these left."
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Katrina Tulloch writes life and culture stories for Syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Contact her: Email | Twitter | Facebook