Organist Paul Jacobs to Appear As Guest Soloist With Seattle Symphony

GRAMMY Award-winning American organist Paul Jacobs will appear as soloist in the Poulenc Organ Concerto with the Seattle Symphony under the baton of conductor Jun Märkl on Thursday evening, January 9, 2025, at 7:30 pm PST at the Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium's Benaroya Hall. The same program will be repeated on Saturday evening January 11, 2025, at 8 pm PST at Benaroya Hall.

The balance of the program includes another Poulenc piece, Suite from Les biches (House Party) and well as Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. A pre-concert talk will be offered for ticket holders one hour prior to each performance.

The full program follows:

Francis Poulenc Suite from Les biches (The House Party)

Francis Poulenc Organ Concerto

Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 7

General admission tickets from $36 to $141 are available for purchase through the Seattle Symphony's website. For more information please visit organist Paul Jacobs' website and Seattle Symphony's event page.

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. The LA concert will be broadcast on PBS's Great Performances early next year. 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 the 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 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)

Performing Stephen Paulus's Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra and Joseph Jongen's Symphonie for Organ and Orchestra with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project under the baton of Gil Rose at Boston's Symphony Hall in February 2022, Mr. Jacobs was roundly praised by critics of the Boston Globe, New York Times, Boston Classical Review, and the Musical Intelligencer. "Jacobs is a musician of astonishing abilities. He has, of course, all his instrument's technical demands perfectly in hand (and feet). But most striking is Jacobs' ear for voicings and balances, as well as his intuitive grasp of the spirit of the music at hand." - Jonathan Blumhofer, Boston Classical Review (February 19, 2022)

"Jacobs and the orchestra expertly navigated its many emotional and coloristic vicissitudes," wrote Geoffrey Wieting in The Boston Intelligencer, February 22, 2022. "With sparkling fingerwork over a sustained pedal melody, the finale, Jubilant, seemingly took root in the French Romantic organ toccata tradition."

When he 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, Cameron Kelsall of Broad Street Review wrote on March 3, 2020:

Step aside, Hugh Jackman. If anyone deserves to be called the greatest showman, it's organ virtuoso Paul Jacobs, who returned to the Philadelphia Orchestra this past weekend for the local premiere of a witty, memorable work written specifically for him.

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