Adam Brakel plays Bach

Adam Brakel plays Fugue on B-A-C-H, op. 46, by Max Reger.

Recorded at the Cathedral of St. James, Orlando, Florida. Wicks organ, four manuals, 63 ranks. https://stjamesorlando.org/

See Adam Brakel's artist spotlight at: https://www.thediapason.com/artists/adam-j-brakel

Adam J. Brakel is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC.

Christopher Houlihan plays Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Opus 65, Number 1, by Felix Mendelssohn.
Performed at St. James Church, Los Angeles; David John Falconer Memorial Organ (originally built in 1911 for St. Paul’s Pro-Cathedral, Los Angeles, by Murray M. Harris), Austin Organs, Inc., Opus 2762, 1995; 91 ranks, 7 divisions, and some 5,000 pipes.

Christopher Houlihan holds the John Rose College Organist-and-Directorship Distinguished Chair of Chapel Music at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, succeeding his former teacher, John Rose. He was previously artist-in-residence at Trinity College, as well as Director of Music and Organist at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Manhattan.

In addition to his studies at Trinity College, Houlihan studied with the Grammy Award-winning organist Paul Jacobs at The Juilliard School and with Jean-Baptiste Robin at the French National Regional Conservatory in Versailles. In 2015 he was selected for The Diapason's "20 Under 30", a distinguished list of leaders in the organ world. 

More information is at ChristopherHoulihan.com.  

Christopher Houlihan is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC. 
www.concertartists.com 

Lynne Davis plays Hymne sur Veni Creator by Nicolas de Grigny (1671–1703) on the Marcussen & Søn organ in Wiedemann Hall at Wichita State University. The program was part of the Rie Bloomfield Organ Series, “Wednesdays in Wiedemann,” on September 8, 2021. 
En taille à 5 (Plein jeu) 
Fugue à 5 
Duo 
Récit de Cromorne 
Dialogue sur les Grands Jeux

Lynne Davis is Robert L. Town Distinguished Professor of Organ at Wichita State University and an international concert organist. Though American by birth, Lynne Davis’s career has been richly steeped in French music, culture, aesthetics, and style. Her career was launched by taking First Prize at the 1975 St. Albans International Organ Competition in England—the eighth organist to receive that honor since the competition’s founding in 1962.  Now a leading international concert artist and master teacher, she has performed in nearly every cathedral in France, numerous major cities throughout Europe, and from coast to coast in the United States. Her activities have included being a featured performer and lecturer at two national conventions and several regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists, giving master classes and lectures about French organ literature and its history, and serving as a member of Chartres, Dallas, St. Albans, and Taraverdiev (Russia) organ competition juries. In October 2017, she served as juror for the Canadian International Organ Competition in Montréal and was a featured recitalist during the competition week.

Lynne Davis is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC.  

See her artist spotlight: https://www.thediapason.com/artists/lynne-davis

The organ program at Wichita State University is the cover feature of the November 2022 issue of The Diapason: 
https://www.thediapason.com/content/cover-feature-wichita-state-university

For information: www.wichita.edu/organ

Michael Hey plays Grand Chœur Dialogué  by Eugène Gigout at Saint Patick’s Cathedral, New York City.

Geo. Kilgen & Son
Gallery Organ – Opus 5918 (1930); rev. Peragallo (1993)
Chancel Organ – Opus 3920 (1928); rev. Peragallo (1993)
Electro-pneumatic action, twin five-manual drawknob consoles; 207 registers, 116 stops, 142 ranks. 

In 2023, Michael Hey was appointed director of music and organist of the historic Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. Founded in 1628, it is the oldest church congregation in New York State. He also serves as assistant music director at Park Avenue Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Prior to his appointment at Marble Collegiate Church, Michael Hey served as associate director of music and organist of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City from 2015–2023, where one of his first major tasks was to perform for the first U.S. visit of Pope Francis. From 2010–2015, he was assistant organist at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.

Not exclusively a solo organist, Michael enjoys a varied career that includes collaborations with other musicians, solo piano recitals, improvising, and transcribing works. He is a proponent of new works for organ and has premiered a number of compositions. He performs works and arrangements for violin and organ with violinist Christiana Liberis in the Hey-Liberis duo.

A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Michael graduated from the accelerated five-year degree program at The Juilliard School, where he received both his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in organ performance under Paul Jacobs.

Michael Hey is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC. 
www.concertartists.com

Performed on the Aeolian organ at Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania: four manuals, 146 ranks, and 10,010 pipes.

Bryan Anderson is the 2023 First Prize Winner of the Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition, where he also received the Philadelphia AGO Chapter Prize for the best performance of a prescribed work by the judges. He also took prizes at the 2021 Canadian International Organ Competition and the 2019 Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition, and is a past first-prize winner of the Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition. 

Bryan serves as director of music at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church and School in Houston, Texas, where he trains all ages of choirs from elementary ages through adults, oversees eight sung services per week, and organizes a concert season of guest artists and in-house ensembles. He serves as co-manager of the RSCM Gulf Coast choral residency program and has also worked as the Preparatory Choir Director for the Houston Children’s’ Chorus. 

Bryan Anderson, as part of his Longwood prize, is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC.  www.concertartists.com

He is a member of The Diapason’s “20 under 30” Class of 2017.

Tambourin, op. 6, no. 3, by Maurice Duruflé, transcribed by Bryan Anderson

There exist only a few non-organ or choral works by Duruflé; the largest in scale, and the only one conceived originally for orchestra without reference to an existing keyboard work, is the Trois Danses pour orchestre.  While the entire work was published in 1932, the third movement, “Tambourin,” was written separately, five years earlier.  According to Duruflé’s memoirs, referenced by Ronald Ebrecht, it was written to be background music for a “primitive” dance scene in a play by Édouard Dujardin.  “Dujardin, whom Mallarmé described as a cross between a coarse seaman and a cow . . . met Duruflé and demonstrated his idea with wild gestures and guttural sounds.”  After Duruflé completed the “Tambourin,” “the playwright found it not at all what he wanted and they never saw each other again.”  This explains why Duruflé found a different use for the piece in the subsequent years!
Around 1932, Duruflé published not only the orchestral score of the Trois Danses, but a version for piano and a version for four-hands piano.  With all three of these accessible, a huge amount of the work required for an organ transcription was already done, with many questions already answered as to how the composer would adapt orchestral writing to the keyboard.  The “Tambourin” is unlike any other Duruflé work except the Opus 5 Toccata in its unrelenting energy and speed.  Many touches of Stravinskian primitivism are obvious, as befits the work’s origins, but within the inter-war Parisian style; it might be the furthest from chant that he ever got in a composition!

Bryan Anderson 

2023 First Prize Winner of the Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition

The exceedingly great level of musicality, the fearlessness of his performance, and the exacting technical prowess exhibited by Bryan Anderson compelled the jury of the 2023 Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition to name him, out of 10 stellar competitors, the First Prize Winner of this illustrious event, where he received the $40,000 Pierre S. DuPont Prize (the largest cash prize of any competitive organ event). The Diapason, which named Bryan to its “20 under 30” Class of 2017, has called his playing “brilliant;” Classical Voice of North Carolina has described his playing as “simply first class.”

In the 2023 Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition, Bryan also received the Philadelphia AGO Chapter Prize for the best performance of a prescribed work by the judges. He also took prizes at the 2021 Canadian International Organ Competition and the 2019 Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition, and is a past first-prize winner of the Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition. Bryan has performed at national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Organ Historical Society and has been featured numerous times on American Public Media's Pipedreams. He appeared on the album Pipedreams Premieres, vol. 3, performing music of Henry Martin alongside Isabelle Demers, Stephen Tharp, and Ken Cowan. Bryan has completed nearly one dozen original orchestral transcriptions, including works by Duruflé, Alkan, Debussy, and Dave Brubeck, and enjoys utilizing these arrangements in recitals.

In addition to solo work, Bryan enjoys an active performance life as a musical collaborator. As a continuo artist at the organ and harpsichord, Bryan is a regular performer with the early-music groups Harmonia Stellarum Houston and the Oklahoma Bach Choir, and has also appeared recently with Mercury Chamber Orchestra, Houston Grand Opera, Kentucky Baroque Trumpets, and the viols of Les Touches. Bryan is also an experienced collaborative pianist and chamber musician, with many years of work as an instrumental and choral accompanist, including as the current concert accompanist for the Houston Children’s' Chorus. In the realm of orchestral music, Bryan has performed in works such as Strauss' Eine Alpensinfonie, Copland's Appalachian Spring, Poulenc's Organ Concerto, Saint-Säens' Organ Symphony, and the chamber orchestration of the Duruflé Requiem. He is also one of the few current organists to tackle large oratorio repertoire at the organ without orchestra, having performed works such as Poulenc's Gloria and Mendelssohn's complete Elijah score alone in choral performances.

Bryan is employed as Director of Music at Saint Thomas’ Episcopal Church and School in Houston, Texas, where he trains all ages of choirs from elementary ages through adults, oversees eight sung services per week, and organizes a concert season of guest artists and in-house ensembles. He serves as Co-Manager of the RSCM Gulf Coast choral residency program and has also worked as the Preparatory Choir Director for the Houston Children’s’ Chorus. He previously held positions at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Houston; Wells Cathedral in Somerset, England; and St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and Tenth Presbyterian Church, both in Philadelphia. He also served as an assistant organist of the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, Philadelphia.

Bryan received his master’s degree in organ performance from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in 2018, where he studied with Ken Cowan. His undergraduate work was completed at the Curtis Institute of Music, resulting in his bachelor’s degree in organ with Alan Morrison and an Artist Diploma in harpsichord with Leon Schelhase  Previous teachers were Jeannine Morrison (piano) and Sarah Martin (organ).

Bryan Anderson, as part of his Longwood prize, is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC. 
www.concertartists.com
E-mail:  [email protected]
Phone: 860-560-7800
10 Abbott Lane, Dearborn, MI 48120-1001

Photo credit: Tam Lan Truong