Playing Tennessee Theatre's Mighty Wurlitzer organ was Matthew Fisher's childhood dream

For Matthew Fisher, getting to say yes to becoming the Tennessee Theatre’s associate house organist came after getting a few no’s regarding playing the same instrument as an enthusiastic young teenager.

But now that the 22-year-old is getting the chance to play at some of the theater’s Mighty Musical Monday concerts and other events as a part-time member of the staff, he and everyone else are collectively in the affirmative about his playing.

What is also for sure is that Fisher is having the time of his life under the bright stage lights of Gay Street. “It’s fun to feel like you have control of the whole room,” he said with enthusiasm.

His supervisor and mentor, Tennessee Theatre house organist Freddie Brabson, has been impressed with Fisher's skill, on top of his eagerness.

“He is extremely enthusiastic,” said Brabson. “Matthew is a fine musician. I couldn’t be prouder to have him on the team. He has a feel and an ear for the theater organ.”

As Fisher joked during a recent interview at the theater in part two of this series on the theater’s organists, he wasn’t afraid to bend a few ears of others, too, while dreaming of getting to play the restored 95-year-old Mighty Wurlitzer organ.

A piano player starting at age 5, he became interested in the theater organ after attending a concert by Jelani Eddington at the Tennessee Theatre in 2013. The interest continued as he went to Anderson County High. While driving into Oak Ridge to take some Middle College classes at Roane State as part of his high school curriculum, he started practicing the organ at First United Methodist in Oak Ridge through an acquaintance. Lessons there soon followed.

He had thought about becoming an engineer while in high school but quickly decided he wanted to focus instead on perfecting something already built, like an organ.

He also could not lose the idea of wanting to play the Tennessee Theatre’s Mighty Wurlitzer, so he began contacting the theater and former house organist Dr. Bill Snyder. Fisher received a harmonious chorus of collective no’s, he jokingly recalled.

Due to the busy schedule of the theater and its staff, and the historic organ’s prized condition, among other factors, the Tennessee Theatre obviously could not let just anyone who wished come in and play it.

But Fisher persisted like a long note from the console. A little over five years ago, when the theater was having an open house in connection with its new sign out front, Snyder was there to play several sets, and noticed the young Fisher sitting on the front row with his grandfather, Jim Fisher. So, Snyder came up and started talking with the teenager.

“I asked if I could get a picture next to it, and then I said, ‘This is my chance,’ so I asked if I could play one song,” Fisher recalled. “I played ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’”

He soon realized he had perhaps reached his own proverbial pot of gold after Snyder said, “I think you know a little bit about what you are doing.”

The door to the historic theater and becoming part of its life had finally cracked open for him ever so slightly after much effort. Eventually Fisher was able to get in touch with Brabson, who became the lead house organist in 2018, and Brabson let him play the organ for about 30 minutes after that year’s Christmas and holiday Mighty Musical Monday show had ended.

That opened an opportunity for Fisher, who was still a teenager, to play at a private and public movie showing there in the summer of 2019. He also got to play the organ at the holiday Mighty Musical Monday concert that December while Brabson conducted on stage.

And then came something that likely sounded as wonderful to Fisher as any organ playing or singing that day. Brabson told the audience regarding Fisher, “He doesn’t know this yet, but he is going to be the associate house organist,” echoing the way Brabson had learned of his own new position from Snyder a few years earlier.

Fisher stays busy getting an online master’s degree in business from Lincoln Memorial University, working as the marketing and membership manager at Knoxville’s First United Methodist Church, and serving as the organist/choirmaster at Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Fountain City.

The former University of Tennessee sacred music major also hopes to use his music background to become a copyright attorney one day.

But whatever his future holds, he certainly hopes the Tennessee Theatre’s Mighty Wurlitzer is part of it.

“Every time I get to play here, I think how lucky I am,” Fisher said. “Every time I turn the lights on, I say ‘Wow.’ I never lose that sense of awe.”

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee Theatre's Mighty Wurlitzer: Organist's childhood dream