Students practice yoga, breathwork to Hendricks Chapel’s organ sound bath
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Yoga, a practice of strength and balance, seemingly has no connection with the organ, which many people consider old-fashioned.
However, on Wednesday, this unlikely pairing created a calm and welcoming environment bringing Syracuse University and SUNY ESF students together.
“We want to make sure everyone knows that Hendricks Chapel is a home for all faiths and a place for all people,” Hendricks Chapel Communications Manager, Dara Harper, said.
On Wednesday night, Harper, who’s also a yoga instructor at SU, and Dr. Anne Laver, organist and artistic director for the Malmgren Concert Series, worked together to co-host the first “Organ Sound Bath and Yoga Experience.” The evening featured breathwork, yoga and relaxation, accompanied by soothing organ music at Hendricks Chapel.
During a trip to South Africa for the “Hendricks Chapel Choir—South Africa Tour 2026” in May, Harper and Laver learned about other events combining music and movement, sparking the yoga organ experience.
Though she saw potential in the idea, Harper originally wasn’t the biggest fan of the organ. However, her love for the instrument grew alongside her friendship with Laver.
“I have grown to love Annie, and with any good relationship, you come to love the person sometimes before you love the thing,” Harper said. “And so, I love Annie, and thereby I now love the organ.”
Since the two already shared a love for yoga, they decided to hold the event to not only share this unlikely idea, but to also shine a light on chapel events and the Syracuse Organ Club.
Beginning with an explanation of Hendricks’ history, Harper then led breathwork exercises like “ujjayi breathing” and yoga poses like downward facing dog. Harper also likes to incorporate similes into her teaching, like “leaning like a flower” in an upper-body stretch.
At the end of the event, before yoga transitioned into organ music, Harper told the story of Ganesha, detailing how the Indian deity, Lord Ganesha, received the head of an elephant following his beheading. This story’s philosophy explains that disconnecting one’s head can allow new experiences to be appreciated. Harper often tells these stories in her classes, and by hearing this story, the students were reminded to keep an open mind about new experiences — such as incorporating the organ with yoga.
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“Ganesha is the God of the threshold and new beginnings. We are always having new beginnings and endings, while we are in these messy in-between states,” Harper said. “Sometimes we don’t know what’s happening. Sometimes you meet a person on the street, and you say hi and that’s nothing until next year.”
As the students finished the last of the yoga poses, Laver began playing low tones on the organ while students laid on provided mats. Whether the attendees kept their eyes open or closed, Harper urged everyone to focus on the organ tone and how it resonated with them.
“The lowest frequencies can kind of rumble the room a little bit, so I wanted to connect to that,” Laver said. “By keeping it in those deep frequencies, those deep sounds, I thought it might allow people to relax.”
The event’s turnout was much more than Harper and Laver imagined, so much that they ran out of yoga mats to use. There was a wide variety of students from ESF and SU students, others from Harper’s yoga classes, as well as ones from the organ club.
Some attendees, like SU freshman Lucie Kolot, found out about the yoga event through friends, while others, like ESF senior Samuel Bouchard, learned through flyers.
However, all of the students found peace for an hour.
“I initially didn’t know about the yoga, and I was lured in by just the sound bath,” Bouchard said. “I really enjoy the sounds of organs, especially the sustained notes that organs produce.”
Although students of all different skill levels participated in the event, Kolot said, as a beginner, the environment was welcoming.
The unlikely combination of yoga and the organ, created by two friends, brought about an hour of relaxation. For Harper, creating the event allows students to find balance between the everyday stressors in life.
“All that time in between is the time where we’re the most human and where we learn to have compassion for ourselves and to have compassion for other people,” Harper said. “I don’t think that’s something that isn’t naturally attained anymore.
“That’s when you become the most human, and that’s when you get into relationship with people and friendship and community.”
