Organ Concert

So we went to a wonderful organ concert at the Kimmel Center yesterday. The organist was Paul Jacobs, who is the chairman of the organ department @ Juiliard. He's only 26 and is the youngest faculty appt in the school's history. He's one of those musical geniuses: he studied piano when he was 6 and organ at 13. In 2000, he performed the complete organ works of J.S. Bach in 14 consecutive evenings in NY and Philly. He also performed an 18 hour non-stop marathon in Pittsburgh. What tops it all off is that he's memorized the complete organ works of Brahms, Franck, Durufle, most of Messiaen and Bach. I couldn't believe he did the whole concert completely memorized! We had box seats towards the front, so we were able to see all his fancy foot pedaling. He was at such ease at playing those difficult pieces....he definitely owned the instrument. We're really blessed as a city to have this beautiful instrument in the Kimmel Center as they don't have anything like this in NY. He showed just how much the organ can do with its beautiful sounds and dynamics. I'm definitely inspired. On a side note, my organ teacher was on the planning committee when they were building the organ in the Kimmel Center (Verizon Hall). The pics of the pipes are what it looks like in the hall.

I also learned something new too. He played a piece by Reger, "Fantasy & Fugue on BACH". He explained on the American music scale, it starts from A to G. Well on the German scale, it starts from A to H. H translated to us is our Bb. So this song was based on the notes B-A-C-H (Bb). It was beautiful and fun to hear those notes intertwined in the music.