Music Hall rescues its magnificent, massive windows

The Trustees of the historic Methuen Memorial Musical Hall don’t like surprises. They meticulously plan for building and organ maintenance years in advance. They use the time in between to apply for grants and make public appeals to fund special projects.

Last spring, MMMH was awarded an Essex National Heritage Area grant to reseal the windows on the barn behind the hall. More than 200 years earlier, the barn had housed the disassembled Great Organ for a decade as it awaited its final placement in the newly created Serlo Organ Hall in 1909, completing the opulent vision Edward F. Searles had for the instrument.

Shortly after the grant was awarded in April 2024, gaps were noticed in the grout of the Music Hall’s majestic 16-foot-by-32-foot, 128-paned window facing Broadway. One area between the panes was hollow which could lead to the failure of the window and potential flooding.

This was an emergency.

Trustee Randy Steere reached out to the Essex Heritage group and asked to transfer the funding from the barn windows to the hall window. Essex Heritage graciously approved. Even with that generous gift of $2,000, MMMH still had less than 10% of the $29,000 cost to make the emergency repairs to the window. The nonprofit, historic-preservation-minded Methuen Festival of Trees as well as MMMH’s followers and friends made up the difference.

“The Methuen Memorial Music Hall is a world-class asset that is unique to the country in an underserved space. There is no amount of insurance that could rebuild this space and the organ were it to be destroyed,” Steere said. “We need to preserve it.”

The MMMH is arguably one of the most famous historic spaces in Methuen. When asked what brushes with celebrity the Methuen Memorial Music Hall had encountered, Steere – also chair of MMMH’s Development and the Finance Committee – quickly responded, “We are the fame; we are the destination. People come from all over the world to play the organ in this hall.”

Social media phenom Paul Fey came from Germany to begin his world tour at the MMMH. Paul Jacobs – the first organist to receive a Grammy Award – who regularly performs with major symphony orchestras and is chair of the Organ Department at The Juilliard School, played here for the 50th Anniversary Music Scholarship Fund Fall Concert on Sept. 15. A Notre Dame Cathedral organist will play here as the cathedral in Paris is being rebuilt after its massive fire. There is a 60-person waiting list to perform a concert on the organ.

But the mission of the MMMH extends beyond the organ. It is to make music accessible to all. When COVID shut down most performance venues, the MMMH was among the first to live-stream concerts for their fans who continued to support the hall even when there were no in-person concerts.

Many of the programs are free. Eighty people registered for Open Console Day this year where anyone – regardless of expertise – can try out the organ in 15-minute increments without cost. A Boston University graduate student registered and demonstrated so much expertise on the organ that he was recruited to perform a concert. The Methuen Young People’s Theatre summer program is supported by the hall, which also provides music scholarships to Merrimack Valley high school seniors.

Interest is high and tickets are either free or low cost, but with a capacity of about 250 patrons, some concerts – like the upcoming Christmas concerts on Dec. 7 and 8 and the July 4th concert – tend to sell out quickly.

Despite the importance of the hall and the organ to Methuen and the world, the MMMH is mostly run by passionate volunteers. Only the recently hired Executive Director Ashley Haseltine receives a salary. Volunteers like Trustees Steere and Richard Ouellette, who is also the program chair and archivist, both came to the hall while in college.

Once visited, this space and the organ are hard to resist. Ouellette has been volunteering for the last 36 years. He explained the mission of the Music Hall is to “preserve and share the history, grandeur and experience of The Great Organ and the hall through musical performances and outreach to the community.”

To continue to provide a quality experience, updates to the facility must be regularly administered. Currently on the to-do list are repairing the smaller windows, converting the knob and tube electrical system, enhancing lighting and adding efficient LED, updates to HVAC with air conditioning potentially making its debut, purchasing a projection screen, enhancing the recording facilities that came in so handy during COVID for live-streaming. In January and February 2025, the plan is to refurbish the organ’s outdated 1909 control system at an estimated cost of $59,000. After earned grants and donations are applied, the group must still raise $20,000 to complete fund the project.

To learn more about MMMH, its upcoming events, volunteer and donation opportunities, visit mmmh.org and/or follow their Facebook page.