This news just in from The Ear:

A campaign to raise $500,000 to complete the original $2-million endowment fund (which now has $1.5 million) to maintain the Overture Concert Organ (see photo at left) through the future was launched Tuesday night at a benefit dinner on the stage of Orchestra Hall.

Fred Mohs, president of the board of directors of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, announced that an anonymous donor had come forward with a $100,000 challenge gift to kick off a open-ended fundraising effort.

The organ's builder, Philipp Klais (see photo at below right), of Bonn, Germany, had come from New Zealand to attend the event.

The organ's donor, Pleasant Rowland also was there, with her husband, Overture Center benefactor Jerry Frautschi.

Organist Samuel Hutchison (seen in the top photo) and soprano Mary MacKenzie entertained the crowd of about 180 at the dinner, themed "Voices of Spring," with music of Johann Strauss II, Pietro Mascagni and others.

Art Talk also finds it a curious move since the organ seems not to have been programmed in a central role for the Madison Symphony Orchestra's next season, though the organ has a series of its own. (For details, visit madisonsymphony.org.)