Organist Paul Jacobs Is Featured With The Cleveland Orchestra On World Premiere Recording Of Deutsch's Okeanos

Grammy-award winning American organist Paul Jacobs appears as the only soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra under the baton of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst on the three-volume album "The Cleveland Orchestra: A New Century." This marks the exciting launch of the Cleveland Orchestra's return to the recording arena. Mr. Jacobs is pleased to be heard in the world premiere recording of the Austrian composer Bernd Richard Deutsch's Okeanos for organ and orchestra on the ensemble's brand new in-house recording label. The release includes live recordings of six performances featuring works by Beethoven, Varèse, Staud, Strauss, Deutsch, and Prokofiev. Mr. Jacobs is featured on Volume III of this set.

Reviewing Mr. Jacobs in the heralded performance of Okeanos with the Cleveland Orchestra, Mark S. Jordan of Seen and Heard International applauded: "organist Paul Jacobs was a dynamo, giving this staggeringly difficult score an authority matched by Welser-Möst and the orchestra." (March. 2019)

The set is available to stream now on Apple Music and to download from the iTunes store, with selections gradually appearing on other streaming sites.The compact discs, which will be released worldwide on June 5, are available for pre-order through the Cleveland Orchestra Store, Amazon, Presto Classical, Barnes & Noble, Europa Disque.

The Cleveland Orchestra: A New Century on the Cleveland Orchestra Label
Volume I

Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770 - 1827)
String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Opus 132 [performed by string orchestra]

Varèse, Edgard (1883 - 1965)
Amériques

Volume II

Staud, Johannes Maria (b. 1974)
Stromab [Downstream] (World Premiere Recording)

Strauss, Richard (1864 - 1949)
Aus Italien

Volume III

Deutsch, Bernd Richard (b. 1977)
Okeanos (World Premiere Recording)
Featuring Organist Paul Jacobs

Prokofiev, Sergei (1891 - 1953)
Symphony No. 3

Internationally celebrated organist Paul Jacobs combines a probing intellect and extraordinary technical mastery with an unusually large repertoire, both old and new. An eloquent champion of his instrument, Mr. Jacobs is known for his imaginative interpretations and charismatic stage presence. He has performed to great critical acclaim on five continents and in each of the fifty United States and is the only organist ever to have won a Grammy Award-in 2011 for Messiaen's towering "Livre du Saint-Sacrément."

No other organist is so frequently re-invited as soloist to perform with prestigious orchestras, thus making him a pioneer in the movement for the revival of symphonic music featuring the organ. 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 has transfixed 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. Mr. Jacobs 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, Wayne Oquin, Stephen Paulus, Christopher Theofanidis, and Christopher Rouse, among others. As a teacher he has also been a vocal proponent of the redeeming nature of traditional and contemporary classical music.

His 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, 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.

This season Mr. Jacobs performed Michael Daugherty's Once Upon a Castle with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of conductor Edward Gardner and with the Kansas City Symphony under the baton of conductor Jason Seber. With the Utah Symphony and conductor Thierry Fischer, Mr. Jacobs is slated to play Barber's Toccata Festiva and Handel's Organ Concerto No. 13 in F Major, "Cuckoo & the Nightingale," in April 2020. And in May, Mr. Jacobs is scheduled to inaugurate the newly restored Hazel Wright organ at the Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, as part of the opening festivities under the aegis of the American Guild of Organists Orange County Chapter and the Catholic Diocese of Orange County.