Though magician never reveals his best tricks, a musician is another story.

And while audiences never know what to expect at a Siegfried & Roy show, audiences will have the chance to instead plan the magic tricks for organist John Schwandt’s fourth annual “Holiday Pipes” concert at 8 p.m. tonight in Sharp Concert Hall.

Schwandt will pick two or three requests for each of 5-10-minute composition from the Christmas song requests audience members will submit before the concert.

“It’s sort of a magic trick – a musical magic trick,” said Schwandt, who has taught organ performance for three years at the OU School of Music. “I’ll literally make up a musical piece on the spot using all three of those melodies – separately and together – at the same time.”

The Christmas-themed pipe organ concert is the last Sutton Concert Series concert of the fall semester.

Now a regular fixture during the holidays at OU, the improvisatory-based concert started as a fluke during his first semester at OU in 2006, said Schwandt, who graduated and previously taught at Indiana University.

Schwandt had planned to do a faculty recital in the fall, but had no time to prepare anything in time after his wife landed in the hospital.

“So the semester had sort of gone by [and I thought], you know, I’ll just improvise and I’ll play a holiday concert the last day of classes,” he said. “People came in droves and it was wildly successful and the people loved the music that came out.”

Built in 1931, the Möller Opus 5819 pipe organ Schwandt will be using also has playable percussion sounds, using real instruments including a piano, marimba, drums, gongs and sleigh bells.

Accompanied with lighting effects such as mood lighting and spotlights, the organ case will also be decked with greenery and a bow.

“[The organ is] like a one-person orchestra,” Schwandt said. “You literally have an orchestra at your fingertips. That’s why it’s called ‘the king of instruments.’”

Audiences are invited to sing along with the several carols that will be performed, as one of OU’s choral ensembles will accompany Schwandt for the song “A Musicological Journey Through the Twelve Days of Christmas,” which was previously performed at the “Christmas at OU” Combined Choirs concert held Dec. 3.

Schwandt said has been practicing familiar Christmas songs in various keys in the meantime to know the themes well enough to be able to improvise with them, and looks forward to the challenge of someone coming up with a song he hadn’t thought about in a while.

“That’s why I say [the performance] like a musical magic trick, but it really is that – the magic of that moment of being with that group of people, and having the themes just at that moment in time can sometimes inspire and make something special happen.”