Organ Concert Series

Organ Concert Series, 2023-2024
20th Anniversary Season

All performances are free to the public. Donations are gratefully accepted.

To give online, please click HERE.
Be sure to select “Organ Concert Series” as the designated fund.

Paul Jacobs

Sunday, September 17th, 2023 @4pm

Heralded as “one of the major musicians of our time” by The New Yorker and “America’s leading organ performer” by The Economist, the internationally celebrated organist Paul Jacobs combines a probing intellect and extraordinary technical mastery with an unusually large repertoire, both old and new. He has performed to critical acclaim on five continents and all fifty United States, and was the first organist to win a Grammy award, in 2011. Mr. Jacobs joined the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York in 2003 and was named chairman of the organ department in 2004, one of the youngest appointments in the school’s history. He returns to Hyde Park after being one of the first performers on the Organ Concert Series when it was newly inaugurated in 2004-2005.

 

This concert is co-sponsored by Phil Crabtree & Christy Backley and Barry & Judy Evans.

Wesley Hall

Sunday, October 15th, 2023
@2pm

Live-stream link: https://youtu.be/e8rhPKXWAF8

Recognized in 2016 by the Diapason magazine as a “20 under 30” leader in Organ, Harpsichord, and Sacred Music in the United States, Wesley Hall is a dynamic organist with an active performance schedule as both a solo artist and collaborator. He is Minister of Music at First Baptist Church in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Mr. Hall will present a fun and interactive concert to engage all ages (including families and children) in new ways to experience the King of Instruments. His nearly 200,000 followers on TikTok are proof that he can make the pipe organ interesting to a large and varied audience!

This concert is sponsored by Bob Keith & Kathy Thornton-Keith.

David Briggs

Sunday, February 18th, 2024 @3pm

PROGRAM LINK
Live-stream link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lrk_1iW8jo

Described as “an intrepid improviser” and one of the finest organists of his generation, internationally acclaimed organist David Briggs will usher in the Lenten season with improvised accompaniment to the silent film “King of Kings” (1928). The film depicts the last few weeks of Jesus’ life before his crucifixion and resurrection. Mr. Briggs is Artist-in-Residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. He performs more than 50 concerts per year at venues such as the Royal Albert Hall (London), Notre-Dame and St. Sulpice (Paris), Berlin Philharmonie (Germany), St. James Cathedral (Toronto), International Performing Arts Center (Moscow), and Grace Cathedral (San Francisco).


This concert is co-sponsored by David & Martha Millett, Sanford R. Martin, and Neal & Dee Dee Hamlin.

Kentucky Symphony Orchestra
with Brenda Portman

Saturday, April 20th, 2024 @7:30pm

The KSO will join forces with HPCUMC Resident Organist Brenda Portman and the mighty Casavant for an exciting program of works for organ and orchestra, including Samuel Barber’s Toccata Festiva and Camille Saint-Saens’s Symphony No. 3 “Organ.” 

Under the direction of J. R. Cassidy, the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra has a mission to make classical music attractive, accessible, and affordable to people in the Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati area. Since its inception in 1992, the KSO has demonstrated a unique ability to make the concert experience relevant and entertaining to its audiences while maintaining high performance standards and integrity.

Brenda Portman is a multiple-award-winning organist who is frequently in demand across the United States as a recitalist, teacher, and composer. Recent engagements include recitals in Illinois, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Florida, a teaching residency at the University of Iowa, and composition commissions from musicians in Vancouver, WA, Philadelphia, PA, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and the Washington National Cathedral.

This concert is co-sponsored by John & Bev Gardner and the James W. and Anne H.S. Nethercott Fund.

Casavant Organ Specifications

Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church Organ by Casavant Frères, Opus 3671 The organ at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church (Opus 3671) was built by Casavant Frères of Quebec, Canada. It was completed in 1990 and was first heard in a dedicatory recital given on September 25 of that year by organist and director of music, Mark Schaffer, who with his predecessors, Edwin Domb and Todd Wilson, assisted in the design of the instrument.

In 2015, the organ celebrated its 25th birthday. Thanks to a generous gift from the estate of the late Dr. Olga Platz, a significant console technology upgrade was completed by Denis Blain of Casavant Frères in August 2015. During the upgrade project, the piston layout was reorganized by consolidating chancel and gallery divisional pistons and converting 11 unused divisional pistons into general pistons (for a new total of 19 generals). The organ’s memory was doubled from 32 to 64 levels, piston sequencing and manual transfer were added, and a set of chimes was installed in the gallery swell division. The improvements offer the organist much greater versatility and ease of playing across the entire breadth of organ repertoire up to and including the 21st century.

Summary

Gallery: 44 Stops, 63 Ranks ~ Chancel: 18 Stops, 25 Ranks ~ Total: 4843 Pipes

Thank You To Our Donors

The Organ Concert Series at HPCUMC is committed to offering top-quality musical performances to the community without an admission price, but we need your help. The series has been sustained solely through private donations and receives no assistance from the church budget. If you have been blessed by this ministry of music, and if you share our mission of promoting excellent music on an excellent organ, played by some of the world’s finest concert organists, please consider giving a gift to The Organ Concert Series Fund. Your contributions are tax-deductible and will enable us to continue to offer these concerts for many years to come.

2022-2023
Carolyn Craig, David von Behren, Caroline Robinson

2021-2022
Damin Spritzer, Aaron David Miller, Stephen Price

2020-2021
Rhonda Sider Edgington, Graeme Shields & Brenda Portman, Dexter Kennedy

2019-2020
Thomas Gaynor and Katelyn Emerson

2018-2019
Thomas Heywood, Eric Plutz, and Bálint Karosi

2017-2018
Jean-Baptiste Robin & Romain Leleu, Kola Owolabi, Renee Anne Louprette

2016-2017
Greg Zelek, Ken Cowan & Lisa Shihoten, Tom Trenney, Amy Johansen & Robert Ampt

2015-2016
CCM Wind Ensemble with Brenda Portman & Michael Unger, Rachel Laurin, Stephen Tharp, David Baskeyfield

2014-2015
Jonathan Ryan, Christoph Bull, Huw Lewis

2013-2014
Jeannine & David Jordan, Organized Rhythm (Clive Driskill-Smith and Joseph Gramley), Raúl Prieto Ramírez, The Canterbury Brass with Brenda Portman

2012-2013
Ken Cowan, Christian Lane, Janette Fishell

2011-2012
Frédéric Blanc, Michael Unger, Douglas Cleveland

2010-2011
Clive Driskill-Smith, Brenda Portman, Raúl Prieto Ramírez, Isabelle Demers

2009-2010
Christopher Houlihan, Anthony & Beard, Bradley Hunter Welch

2008-2009
Thomas Trotter, The Chenaults organ duo, Lynne Davis

2007-2008
Alan Morrison, New York Organ & Piano Duo (Daniel Sullivan, organ, and Jason Cutmore, piano), and Thierry Escaich

2006-2007
Vincent Dubois, Martin Jean, and Anthony & Beard (Gary Beard, organ, and Ryan Anthony, trumpet)

2005-2006
Stefan Engels, Olivier Latry, and Carol Williams

2004-2005
Pierre Pincemaille, Sonia Kim, and Paul Jacobs

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