New York's historic Radio City Music Hall will on August 9 play host to one of the finest concerts that Manhattan has ever seen. Swoon, as retired Air Force colonel Jack Moelmann plays the 1932 Wurlitzer organ! Gape, as his fingers tickle its four keyboards, sound a-soaring up its 58 sets of pipes! Marvel, as he and English organist Russell Holmes play such classics as Bert and Ernie's Rubber Duckie song and the Battle Hymn of the Republic!

If this all sounds a little, er, peculiar ... well you're absolutely correct. For the first time in recent memory, Radio City Music Hall ? which usually plays host to the likes of Alanis Morissette and Goldfrapp ? has been rented by an amateur musician. Moelmann has invested nearly $120,000 (?60,000) to stage his dream gig: "A Musical Showcase Featuring Col. Jack Moelmann and Friends at the Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Pipe Organ."

"One day back in February, I looked in the mirror and said, 'Jack, you have a dream, go for it!'" the 67-year-old told the Associated Press. "Not to argue with myself, I have personally rented Radio City Music Hall for an organ programme the likes of which has not been done in years, if ever."

The Radio City organ is the largest theatre pipe organ ever manufactured by Wurlitzer. Moelmann will use it to full effect, flying in four guest organists and even playing duets using the independent organ consoles, each a "city block apart" across the 144-foot stage.

Tickets are $50 each, but Moelmann is hardly planning to sell out the 5,933-capacity hall. "I'll be happy with 1,000 people," he said. "I'm going there to gratify myself by playing ... and to show off what the music hall has in the way of an organ."

Moelmann lives with his Australian Shepherd in O'Fallon, Illinois, not far from the Scott Air Force Base - where he worked for many years in communications and electronics. He has installed his own pipe organ in his family room, but it's a modest, three-manual 22-rank instrument - a far cry from Radio City's marvel. To achieve his Radio City dream, Moelmann cashed his savings accounts and savings bonds. He calls it "the Mecca of places to play".

Moelmann is planning to choose the programme at the very last minute, after seeing "what's going to work". This is typical of theatre organ programmes, he explained. "We don't print exactly what's being played. We announce it, we talk in between (the songs), make little jokes, otherwise it gets kind of boring watching the back of somebody."

The audience can still be fairly certain of hearing Rubber Duckie and lost classics such as the "trolley song" from Meet Me in St Louis and the title tune from Mame. Moelmann is also planning a medley of patriotic songs, with projections of Air Force planes on a vast screen.

And what will Moelmann aspire to, once the concert is over? "I'll need to recover from this," he told journalists. "And then I will be able to say I've played in all the good places in the country." Next stop: all the good places outside the country! Hammersmith Apollo, the Moelmann cometh!