Organist Paul Jacobs Appears as Soloist With Edmonton Symphony Orchestra
The event takes place April 11 and April 12, 2025.
By: Emmy Rice Apr. 04, 2025
Heralded as "one of the finest organists and teachers of our day," by Zachary Woolfe of The New York Times, American organist Paul Jacobs, the only organist ever to have won a GRAMMY Award, will return to the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra as a soloist under the baton of conductor Carolyn Kuan. This concert will take place Friday evening April 11, 2025, 7:30 p.m. local time at Edmonton's Winspear Centre (4 Sir Winston Churchill Square Northwest & Corner of 99 Street &, 102 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T5J 4X8, Canada).
Mr. Jacobs is going to perform Joseph Jongen's Symphonie concertante for Organ. The same program will be repeated on April 12, 2025, 7:30 p.m. local time at the same location.
Entitled "Organ and Orchestra," the program will also include Mendelssohn;s Symphony No. 4 "Italian" and composer Allan Gilliland's Shadows & Light, commissioned by the Edmonton Symphony in 2000. The full program includes Felix Mendelssohn Symphony No. 4 "Italian"; Joseph Jongen Symphonie concertante for Organ; Paul Jacobs, Organ; Allan Gilliland Shadows & Light.
Patrons of this event are invited to attend a prelude presentation by Natalie Boisvert before this concert on Friday, April 11th and Saturday, April 12th, at 6:45 PM in the Upper Circle Lobby of Winspear Centre.
The internationally celebrated organist Paul Jacobs combines a probing intellect and extraordinary technical mastery with an unusually large repertoire, both old and new. Mr. Jacobs has been heralded as "one of the major musicians of our time" by Alex Ross of The New Yorker and as "America's leading organ performer" by The Economist. No other organist is so frequently re-invited as soloist to perform with prestigious orchestras, thus making him a leading pioneer in the movement for the revival of symphonic music featuring the organ.
During the 2023-2024 season Mr. Jacobs gave the world premiere of Lowell Liebermann's Organ Concerto co-commissioned by the Jacksonville Symphony and the Oregon Bach Festival and was invited to perform with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel as part of the gala celebrating the 20th anniversary of Walt Disney Hall. He was also invited back to the Los Angeles Philharmonic for a performance of Lou Harrison's Organ Concerto with Esa-Pekka Salonen. Mr. Jacobs played Samuel Barber's Toccata Festiva with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; What Do We Make of Bach? by John Harbison with the New England Philharmonic; appeared as soloist with the Toledo Symphony in the Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra by Stephen Paulus; and premiered a new version of Michael Daugherty's Once Upon a Castle for Organ and Orchestra with the Las Vegas Philharmonic. One would be hard pressed to find any other musician performing six modern or contemporary concertos in one year.
In recital, Mr. Jacobs presented an all-Bach program under the aegis of the Nashville Symphony. He was invited to perform Messiaen's towering Livre du Saint Sacrament in Hamburg; the 2000 audience members at the prestigious Elbphilharmonie were spellbound.
An eloquent champion of his instrument, Mr. Jacobs is known for his imaginative interpretations and charismatic stage presence. Mr. Jacobs is the only organist ever to have won a GRAMMY Award-in 2011 for Messiaen's Livre du Saint-Sacrament. Having performed to great critical acclaim on five continents and in each of the fifty United States, Mr. Jacobs regularly appears with the Chicago Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, Nashville Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Toledo Symphony, and Utah Symphony, among others. Mr. Jacobs is also Founding Director of the Oregon Bach Festival Organ Institute, a position he assumed ten seasons ago.
Mr. Jacobs has moved audiences, colleagues, and critics alike with landmark performances of the complete works for solo organ by J.S. Bach and Messiaen, as well as works by a vast array of other composers. He made musical history at the age of 23 when he played Bach's complete organ works in an 18-hour marathon performance on the 250th anniversary of the composer's death. A fierce advocate of new music, Mr. Jacobs has premiered works by Samuel Adler, Mason Bates, Michael Daugherty, Bernd Richard Deutsch, John Harbison, Lowell Liebermann, Wayne Oquin, Stephen Paulus, Christopher Rouse, and Christopher Theofanidis, among others. As a teacher he has also been a vocal proponent of the redeeming nature of traditional and contemporary classical music.
Past recital engagements have included performances under the aegis of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center White Light Festival, Los Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Hall, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Oregon Bach Festival, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, the St. Louis Cathedral-Basilica, Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, as well as at the American Guild of Organists.
He has given the world premiere of Christopher Rouse's Organ Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra-co-commissioned by the National Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic-and, with the Toledo Symphony, has performed Michael Daugherty's Once Upon a Castle, a work he recorded in 2015 with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and conductor Giancarlo Guerrero which was released by Naxos in September 2016, and awarded three GRAMMYs, including Best Classical Compendium.
Mr. Jacobs celebrated the bicentennial of eminent 19th century French composer César Franck's birth with two solo organ recitals in New York City at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, under the auspices of the American Guild of Organists. Reviewing the second concert in the series, Zachary Woolfe of the The New York Times called Mr. Jacobs "one of the finest organists and teachers of our day...Jacobs's textures were also beautifully varied in the 'Prière,' the trumpet mellowed by the vast space without losing its focus; the 'Prélude, Fugue et Variation' was a wistful nocturne, sensitively controlled and never overblown. The 'Final' moved from roaring lows to shimmering highs, its dotted-rhythm motif bounding before its pile-on conclusion." (June, 2022)
Mr. Jacobs studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, double-majoring with John Weaver for organ and Lionel Party for harpsichord, and at Yale University with Thomas Murray. He joined the faculty of The Juilliard School in 2003, and was named chair of the organ department in 2004, one of the youngest faculty appointees in the school's history. He was awarded Juilliard's prestigious William Schuman Scholar's Chair in 2007. In addition to his concert and teaching engagements, Mr. Jacobs has appeared on American Public Media's Performance Today, Pipedreams, and Saint Paul Sunday, as well as NPR's Morning Edition, ABC-TV's World News Tonight, and BBC Radio 3. In 2021 he received the International Performer of the Year Award from the American Guild of Organists, and in 2017 Washington and Jefferson College bestowed him with an honorary doctorate. Mr. Jacobs has written several well-received articles for the Wall Street Journal.
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