Feast Day Organ Recitals at Saint Mary’s
2023-2024
All recitals begin at 5:30 PM, followed by Solemn Mass at 6:00 PM
Cynthia Powell
The Stonewall Chorale & Melodia Women’s Choir, NYC
Wednesday, 1 November, All Saints’ Day
David Hurd
Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, NYC
Friday, 8 December, The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Gregory Eaton
All Saints’ Episcopal Church & University of Texas, Austin, Texas
Friday, 5 January, Eve of The Epiphany
Janet Yieh
Church of the Heavenly Rest, NYC
Friday, 2 February, The Presentation
Daniel Ficarri
The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, NYC
Monday, 8 April, The Annunciation (observed)
James Kibbie
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Thursday, 9 May, Ascension Day
Organist Biographies
Cynthia Powell, Artistic Director of the Stonewall Chorale and Melodia Women’s Choir, and Organist and Choirmaster of the Welsh Congregation of New York City, will present the recital on All Saints’ Day, 1 November. She is a graduate of Westminster Choir College and has served many churches throughout the New York-New Jersey area. She is currently the accompanist and choir director of Temple Sinai in Tenafly, has served as guest faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, has led the Saint George’s Choral Society in New York City, and was a guest conductor at the International Choral Festival in Havana, Cuba. She has produced recitals, oratorios, and concerts to benefit Doctors Without Borders, the Pastors for Peace Cuba Caravan, and Water is Life, Kenya. Cynthia Powell has performed as keyboardist with composer Meredith Monk and has toured the U.S. and Europe in various works by Monk. She recently led the Stonewall Chorale in “Considering Matthew Shepard” by Craig Hella Johnson. Her program on 1 November will include works by J. S. Bach, Jean Langlais, and Olivier Messiaen.
David Hurd, Organist and Music Director at The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, will present the recital on 8 December, The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. David Hurd is a native New Yorker and has studied locally at The Juilliard School, the High School of Music and Art, and the Manhattan School of Music. He graduated from Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, and he continued graduate studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has received doctoral degrees, honoris causa, from academic institutions in Connecticut, Illinois, California, and Tennessee. From 1976 until 2015 he served on the faculty of The General Theological Seminary and was named Professor of Church Music and Organist in 1984. He has also taught at Duke University, the Manhattan School of Music, Westminster Choir College, and Yale University. A lifelong Episcopalian, he served on the Standing Commission on Church Music from 1977 to 1986 and was a major contributor to The Hymnal 1982. Since winning first prizes both in organ performance and in improvisation at the 1977 International Congress of Organists, he has performed extensively throughout North America and Europe, and has been a featured artist at several national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists. His catalogue of published musical compositions features choral, vocal, liturgical, and organ works, and includes I Sing as I Arise Today, a collection of seventy-seven hymn settings, several of which also appear in various denominational hymnals. In 2010, he became the fifteenth recipient of The AGO’s biennial Distinguished Composer Award. He was appointed at Saint Mary’s in 2016 having previously served at Trinity Church Wall Street and Saint Paul’s Chapel, The Church of the Intercession, Saint James’ Church, All Saints Church, and the Church of the Holy Apostles. He is represented by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists. His program on 8 December will include works by Alexandre Guilmant, Paul Hindemith, and one of his own compositions.
Gregory Eaton, Organist and Choirmaster at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Austin, Texas, and Lecturer in Organ and Harpsichord at the Butler School of Music, University of Texas in Austin, will present the recital on 5 January, the Eve of the Epiphany. His advanced musical studies were at the University of Redlands and the Manhattan School of Music. His principal teachers from his Redlands years include Jeffrey Richard and Leslie Spelman. At All Saints’ Church in Austin, where he has been Organist and Choirmaster since 2014, he conducts the parish’s vocal and handbell choirs. In addition, he has been director of the Damenchor of the Austin Saengerrunde for several seasons and is also a member of the Austin Recorder Quartet. He is secretary of the Board of La Follia Austin Baroque Orchestra, and president of the Board of Ensemble VIII. As a member of the American Guild of Organists, he has served as District Convenor for Central Texas, as well as Dean of the Austin Chapter. Previously in the Brooklyn, New York, Chapter, he served several terms as a member of the Executive Board, as Sub-Dean, and as Dean. Prior to Austin, Gregory was in New York from 1984 to 2014, where he began in a position serving with Larry King at Trinity Church, Wall Street. He later served as Organist and Choirmaster at the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Yorkville. In addition, he was Lecturer in Church Music at The General Theological Seminary for many years, concurrent with his position as Director of Music at Saint Ann & the Holy Trinity Church, Brooklyn Heights. At Saint Ann’s, he founded a weekly organ concert series on the church’s historic E.M. Skinner organ, on which he played over six hundred concerts in a fifteen-year span. He was also co-founder, with David Hurd, of the Chelsea Winds recorder ensemble. His program on 5 January will be the magnificent Grand Pièce Symphonique of César Franck.
Janet Yieh, Organist and Choirmaster of the Church of the Heavenly Rest, New York City, will present the recital on 2 February, the Feast of the Presentation. An innovative concert recitalist and sacred music specialist, Janet has been lauded for her “expressivity and technical prowess” (The American Organist) and named one of “20 under 30” promising artists by The Diapason. She has performed throughout the United States and across the globe, with highlights including New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Washington’s National Cathedral and The Kennedy Center, San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, Yale University’s Woolsey Hall, Taipei’s Aletheia University Chapel, Japan’s Momoyama St. Andrew’s University Chapel, the American Guild of Organists’ 2022 National Convention in Seattle and the Association of Anglican Musicians’ National Conference in Richmond, and broadcasts on the national radio show Pipedreams. For seven years, she served as Associate Organist at Trinity Church, Wall Street in New York City where she played weekly services, founded the Saint Paul’s Chapel Choir, accompanied the Grammy-nominated Trinity Choir and Trinity Youth Chorus, and worked closely with the music and liturgy departments. She is a co-founder of “Amplify Female Composers” and The Advent Calendar Project, and research contributor to A Great Host of Composers’ Women Composers Database. Her recital program on 2 February will include works of Théodore Dubois, Brenda Portman, Nancy Plummer Faxon, and Edward Elgar.
Daniel Ficarri, Associate Director of Music and Organist at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City, will present the recital on 8 April when the Feast of the Annunciation will be observed. Named one of the top “20 under 30” organists by The Diapason, Daniel Ficarri is also a composer of organ, choral, and chamber music. He has made appearances in Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall under the batons of Marin Alsop, Itzhak Perlman, David Robertson, James Gaffigan, and Bernard Labadie; and he has performed in many of the country’s great concert halls and houses of worship, including Symphony Hall in Boston and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. The New York Times featured Ficarri in the “Week’s 8 Best Classical Music Moments,” and WQXR-FM presented him as part of the 2014 Bach Organ Marathon. Daniel studied the organ with Paul Jacobs at The Juilliard School, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Ficarri’s compositional output includes inaugural organ works for Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, and Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. Last season, his works received premieres at Juilliard’s Paul Recital Hall, The Madison Symphony Orchestra’s Overture Hall, and the American Guild of Organists’ Westchester Convention. Much of Daniel’s music is published by ECS Publishing Group. Daniel studied composition with Rachel Laurin. His program on 8 April will include works by J. S. Bach, Marcel Dupré, Léon Boëllmann, and his own compositions.
James Kibbie, Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, will present the recital on 9 May, Ascension Day. Dr. Kibbie’s forty-two-year tenure in Ann Arbor included service as University Organist and Chair of the Organ Department. His former students hold key positions in college teaching and church music nationally. Among the honors he has received, he is particularly proud of the James Kibbie Scholarship, endowed in perpetuity by the University of Michigan to support students majoring in organ performance and sacred music. Dr. Kibble maintains a full schedule of concert, recording, and festival engagements throughout North America and Europe, including appearances at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, Royal Festival Hall in London, Dvořak Hall in Prague, and Lincoln Center in New York. During his month-long concert tour of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newspaper Pravda hailed him as “a marvelous organist, a brilliant interpreter.” A frequent jury member of international organ competitions, he has himself been awarded the Grand Prix d'Interprétation at the prestigious International Organ Competition of Chartres, France, and is also the only American to have won the International Organ Competition of the Prague Spring Festival in the former Czechoslovakia. He is internationally renowned as an authority on the organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach. He has performed the complete cycle of Bach organ works in a series of eighteen recitals and is in constant demand as a Bach recitalist and clinician. Thanks to generous support from Dr. Barbara Furin Sloat in honor of J. Barry Sloat, the University of Michigan is offering Dr. Kibbie’s critically acclaimed recordings of all 274 Bach works as free internet downloads at www.blockmrecords.org/bach. His program on 9 May will include works by J. S. Bach, Fela Sowande, and Leo Sowerby.