Stressed During Finals? Try a WHRB Orgy

Beneath Pennypacker Hall during exam season, a dedicated group of students keep the lights on and tunes running. As their peers cram desperately for an exam the next day or try to catch up on sleep, a rotating cast of undergraduates occupies the studio of Harvard’s radio station, WHRB. This is the home of the Orgy, WHRB’s name for their biannual longform musical programming that takes place during the finals periods.

Julia J. David ’26 shed more light on this beloved tradition in an interview with The Crimson.

“Orgies are WHRB’s marathon-style musical programs devoted to a single composer, performer, genre, or theme, I would say. We have a registered trademark on the word which is very fun.”

WHRB’s Orgies are the definition of intersectional. Each theme, chosen by the student DJ running the program, sits at the crossroads of interest, curiosity, and experimentation. Meticulously thought out, even simple artist-inspired Orgies like Gwendolyn M. Ibarra’s ’26 “Frank Ocean Orgy” aren’t random regurgitations of the musician’s most famous tracks but a conglomerate of research. On WHRB’s website, the description of the program had it listed as “Frank Ocean songs to cry/fornicate/dance to” which was “inspired by a venn diagram of Ocean’s discography which DJ motha [Ibarra] found on Reddit.”

This level of specificity and care is not isolated to cut-and-dry themes like artists’ discographies. Some take much more abstract inspiration, from the constellation Cassiopeia to the concept of Divine Illumination to a transcript Orgy, which featured songs corresponding to each class on the DJ’s academic transcript.

In addition to the Frank Ocean program, Ibarra, in this semester alone, crafted “Weekend Lover,” “The Gold Room Orgy,” “The Life’s Incredible,” “Look What the Cat Dragged In,” and “The Fiddle/Banjo/Steel Guitar.” Notably, “The Gold Room” is a ten hour Orgy whose inspiration Ibarra derived from a location in one 1980 cult classic horror movie.

“It’s based on a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “The Shining.” I absolutely love that movie, and there’s a scene where there’s an orchestra playing some sort of, like, big band, swing, Al Bowlly-type music, and so, [I was] starting with songs that are actually in the movie and then going on for ten hours with blues and a little bit more swing,” Ibarra said.

Some Orgies even blend music with spoken segments and other media types. When executed, these programs explore academic and intellectual interests as much as musical ones, allowing DJs to bring in their own intellectual interests to their sets. For Molly E. Egan ’26, the flexible nature of the Orgy allowed her to explore the brain from multiple different angles.

“I’ve been fascinated for all of college with different ways of schematizing and defining our brain function, I suppose, but I didn’t study Psychology,” Egan said. “I’m [a] Social Studies [concentrator], so I kind of have done more philosophy of the brain. I was playing some random segments from philosophers. I was reading William James and then playing interviews with artists. I played some interviews with Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen and then would play songs that I felt kind of represented the brain states that I was talking about. And then I also just played some kind of freaky meditation soundtracks and relaxation soundtracks and hypnosis music, so it was a little bit bizarre.”

Egan’s Orgy — titled “The Brain Orgy” — stretched a full seven hours.

The sheer length of the Orgies, particularly during finals period, has helped define them as a lasting tradition at the station. Both artist-based themes as well as more abstract ones like Egan’s serve as a solid basis for hours upon hours of music. The station also runs at all hours of the night, meaning that some students have sets at two or six in the morning, which can make balancing schoolwork and final exams with running the Orgies difficult.

“I would say more often than not, most people — because we’re all such different students that have different schedules — can find a time that works decently well for them. But I definitely had semesters where it’s not ideal — it’s like the night before a big paper is due, or two nights before a big final exam, and I’m up all night at the studio,” David said.

Still, putting on the Orgies is viewed as a labor of love: one for not just the theme itself, but also getting to share it with others.

Broadcast radio is typically a one-way street. But, when the Orgies are on air, listeners who feel strongly about the theme or want to chat can weigh in via phone call to the station. The content of the calls can vary, from song recommendations to fun facts to feedback — both positive and constructive. Still, the interaction from listeners indicates that they find the sets worthy of engagement and thought.

“People listen on the radio in the car, at home, even on laptops. I think it’s really nice to sort of have a community beyond just Cambridge or even Boston,” Ibarra said.

One constant discomfort stemming from the finals period tradition, however, is that WHRB’s DJs have had some difficulty when referring to their programming in casual conversation.

“It certainly leads to a lot of confusion. It happens quite frequently that you’ll just be talking to a group of people and you say, ‘Oh, she has her Orgy later,’ and someone’s like, ‘What?’ It’s at least pretty often that people don’t know the name, and it is funny when that happens,” Egan said.

Ibarra encountered similar confusion regarding the name of the tradition.

“Any large amount of anything is an orgy, right? It doesn’t have to be sexual,” Ibarra said. “So that’s what I tell my parents, at least.”

If the last 80 years and these dedicated DJs are any indication, this quirkily named tradition will continue to live on — parental enthusiasm notwithstanding.

— Staff Writer Francesca H. Vittorelli can be reached at [email protected].