Naxos will issue the digital release of Paul Jacobs’s recording of Olivier Messiaen’s magnum opus Livre du Saint Sacrement recorded by Mr. Jacobs at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York City. The work will be available for download after January 1 from iTunes at itunes.apple.com/us/album/id348056667. Naxos will subsequently release the recording on CD in September 2010.
Paul Jacobs is widely acknowledged for reinvigorating the U.S. organ scene with a fresh performance style and “an unbridled joy of musicmaking” and is recognized among today’s finest organists. Chairman of the organ department of New York’s Juilliard School since 2004, the 32-year-old organist made musical history in 2000 at the age of 23 when, on the 250th anniversary of the death of J. S. Bach, he played the composer’s complete organ music in a non-stop 18-hour marathon in Pittsburgh.
He possesses a vast repertoire spanning from the 16th century through contemporary times, and composers Samuel Adler, Christopher Theofanidis, and others have written pieces especially for him. Mr. Jacobs has also performed the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen in a series of nine-hour, one-day marathons in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.
Mr. Jacobs has performed on five continents and recently reached a noteworthy geographic milestone: With his performance in Anchorage, Alaska, in November, he has performed in every one of America’s 50 states.
Paul Jacobs began studying the piano at the age of six and the organ at age 13. At 15 he was appointed head organist of a parish of 3,500 families in his hometown of Washington, Pennsylvania. Mr. Jacobs studied at The Curtis Institute of Music, where he double-majored in organ with John Weaver and harpsichord with Lionel Party. He subsequently attended Yale University, where he studied with Thomas Murray and received a Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma and was awarded several honors, including Yale School of Music’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Mr. Jacobs captured first prize in numerous competitions, including the 1998 Albert Schweitzer National Organ Competition and was the first organist ever to be honored with the Harvard Musical Association’s Arthur W. Foote Award. Among his other honors, Mr. Jacobs is the recipient of Juilliard’s 2007 William Schuman Scholar’s Chair.
January 22, 2010
Shuman Associates
