Distinguished Composer Lowell Liebermann To Curate 'Thornwillow Concerts At Calvary' In Newburgh

The internationally lauded American composer Lowell Liebermann has been appointed Artistic Director of the "Thornwillow Concerts At Calvary," a new series at the recently renovated Calvary Presbyterian Church in Newburgh, New York. GRAMMY Award-winning organist Paul Jacobs will inaugurate the series with a solo recital on Saturday afternoon, November 4, 5 p.m. 1200 South Street, Newburgh, NY 12550. The full program follows:

Johann Sebastian Bach Sinfonia to Cantata No. 29

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Fantasia in F Minor, K. 594

Dudley Buck Concert Variations on The Star-Spangled Banner, Op. 23

César Franck Prelude, Fugue, and Variation, Op. 18

Alexandre Guilmant Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 42

Concert Admission is free, but reservations are required: www.thornwillowinstitute.org. There will be an after-concert patrons' dinner for Friends of Thornwillow Concerts at Calvary. Leon Johnson, artist and chef, will provide a locally sourced supper to follow the concert. Tickets are available at $200 each, at the same website. Proceeds support the ongoing Thornwillow Concerts at Calvary series which is committed to making great music accessible to the community.

Thornwillow Concerts is the brainchild of Luke Pontifell, founder, in 1985, of Thornwillow Press, a niche printing company dedicated to making books that last, with careful attention to the use of quality paper, printing, and binding. Additionally, the company designs and manufactures fine paper and stationery, drawing on the rich traditions of classical engraving and letterpress printing.

Monthly performances of classical instrumental, vocal, and chamber music, as well as jazz and other genres will be presented as part of an ongoing effort to reinvigorate Newburgh as a "live/work" haven. Renovations of existing structures, the creation of new businesses, and the development of space for artists'work spaces, are contributing to the renascence of the city, while respecting the rights of the local population to maintain affordable residences. After a fire in 2020 devastated Newburgh's Gothic revival Calvary Presbyterian Church and its historic Skinner & Sons pipe organ, monies were raised to restore the space as well as the instrument. Mr. Jacobs will be the first to perform live in public on the 2178 pipe organ. The church also houses a Steinway concert grand piano. Thornwillow Concerts will engage the community in the form of outreach performances and collaboration with local artists, fostering music education by utilizing the venue and visiting artists for masterclasses and student mentoring, and by working with local schools and organizations to bring free access to music for the community.

At once unabashedly romantic and modern, American composer Lowell Liebermann is internationally recognized as an artist of uncommon profundity and popularity. In the words of long-time music critic Alex Ross of The New Yorker: "Lowell Liebermann is an epicure among American composers, savoring glittery chords, gossamer lines, and velvety textures that more self-consciously intellectual colleagues might be scared to put on paper." "Now brazen and glittering, now radiantly visionary...the work of a composer unafraid of grand gestures and openhearted lyricism," proclaimed Time Magazine. And according to The Atlantic: "The music combines rich, unabashed emotions with an energy...shot through with expressive melody, brilliantly orchestrated, paced with unerring dramatic flair...crafted with passion and art."

Not content to compose, Mr. Liebermann excels as a solo pianist both live and in recording. He has given the world premieres of his own solo piano works as well as works by his fellow composers Ned Rorem and William Bolcolm. In 2021, the Steinway label released Liebermann's debut album as piano soloist to critical acclaim: "Personal Demons," a compendium of music that has shaped Liebermann's musical thought, including works by Schubert, Liszt, Kabelá?, Busoni's monumental Fantasia Contrappuntistica, and works by Liebermann himself. The following year, in 2022, the Steinway & Sons label sponsored a second solo piano album by Mr. Liebermann, The Devil's Lyre, featuring music of contemporary British composer David Hackbridge Johnson. Another album of piano music by German Romantic composer Theodor Kirchner is slated for release on the Blue Griffin label in late 2023. A Steinway artist, Mr. Liebermann made his Berlin debut performing his Piano Quintet with members of the Berlin Philharmonic.

This season's highlights include a world premiere of Mr. Liebermann's Organ Concerto, to be performed by distinguished organist Paul Jacobs with the Jacksonville Symphony and conductor Courtney Lewis September 29th, 2023. This concerto was jointly commissioned by the Jacksonville Symphony and the Oregon Bach Festival. In October of this yeaer, at Stern Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Kazakh State Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Andreas Delfs performed two of Mr. Liebermann's works, his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 74 and his Chamber concerto No. 1, Op. 28a for Violin, Piano, and String Orchestra featuring violinist Aiman Mussakhajayeva and Mr. Liebermann at the piano. Three Dances from Frankenstein received its US premiere by Gilmore Young Artist Maxim Lando at the Crypt Sessions in uptown New York City. The Joffrey Ballet gave the Chicago premiere of Mr. Liebermann's Frankenstein with choreography by Liam Scarlett and stage design by John MacFarlane at the Lyric Opera. In March 2024the internationally lauded conductor Susanna Mälkki leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in world premiere performances of Mr. Liebermann's Flute Concerto No. 2, with principal flutist Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson as soloist.

One of the most frequently performed and recorded composers of America, Mr. Liebermann has written more than one hundred forty works in all genres, several of which have gone on to become standard repertoire for their instruments. His Sonata for Flute and Piano and his Gargoyles for piano are among the most popular contemporary works for their instruments, regularly included in recital and competition programs. Each of them has been recorded on compact disc more than twenty-five times to date. His full-length ballet Frankenstein was co-commissioned by London's Royal Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet and has been released on Blu-Ray and DVD. The San Francisco Ballet Orchestra under the baton of Martin West has also released the complete score on Reference Recordings. Mr. Liebermann has written two full-length operas, both enthusiastically received at their premieres: The Picture of Dorian Gray, the first American opera commissioned by and premiered in 1995 by l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo, and Miss Lonelyhearts, after the novel by Nathanael West, commissioned and presented by the Juilliard School to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2005.

The celebrated flutist Sir James Galway has commissioned three major works from Mr. Liebermann: Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra, and Trio No. 1 for Flute, Cello and Piano. Sir James premiered the Flute Concerto with the St. Louis Symphony under Leonard Slatkin and subsequently performed it with James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. He recorded three of Mr. Liebermann's concertos for RCA Red Seal with the composer conducting the London Mozart Players.

Mr. Liebermann has composed four symphonies, a Concerto for Orchestra, three piano concertos, and concertos for many other instruments. His Symphony No. 2 was commissioned and premiered by the Dallas Symphony under the baton of Andrew Litton, in celebration of the orchestra's centenary in February 2000. This concert was the ground-breaking first webcast ever of an orchestral concert. Mr. Liebermann's Piano Concerto No. 2 was commissioned by Steinway & Sons and premiered by Stephen Hough with the National Symphony under the direction of Mstislav Rostropovich. The Hyperion recording of the concerto - conducted by the composer - received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. The New York Philharmonic with Kurt Masur and principal trumpet Philip Smith presented the premiere of Mr. Liebermann's Trumpet Concerto, which the Wall Street Journal described as "balancing bravura and a wealth of attractive musical ideas to create a score that invites repeated listening." He has also been commissioned by the Emerson String Quartet and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Recent new works include Cello Sonata No. 5, commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the University of Reno for cellist Dmitri Atapine and pianist Hyeyeon Park; String Quartet No. 6 for the Dover Quartet, courtesy the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music; a song cycle for soprano Brenda Rae, jointly commissioned by Vocal Arts DC and London's Wigmore Hall; and Romance, Etude and Chorale for piano duet, his second commission from Steinway & Sons.

Mr. Liebermann has amassed a remarkable discography, with over one hundred fifty releases on labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, Hyperion, Virgin Classics, Hungaroton, New World Records, Albany, RCA Red Seal, Reference, and many others. His works are published by Theodore Presser Company, Schott, and Faber Music. He has been invited to serve as Composer-in-Residence for numerous distinguished organizations including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for four years; the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan; the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Mr. Liebermann has been a faculty member of the Composition Department of the Mannes School of Music of the New School since 2012. In addition to mentoring numerous young students, he was the founding conductor of the Mannes American Composers Ensemble, devoted to performing works of living American composers.

Mr. Liebermann is the recipient of many awards and distinctions, among them the CAG Virtuoso Award given by Concert Artists Guild for lifetime achievement, and Grand Prize from the inaugural American Composers Invitational awarded by the Van Cliburn Competition. In 2016 he was awarded the Barto Prize for his Eighth Nocturne for solo piano. He has been honored multiple times by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, most recently becoming the first recipient of the Virgil Thompson Vocal Award for his body of vocal music. He lives in the New York City area with his partner, pianist and conductor William Hobbs.

The internationally celebrated organist Paul Jacobs combines a probing intellect and extraordinary technical mastery with an unusually large repertoire, both old and new. Called "one of the finest teachers and organists of our day," by Zachary Woolfe in the June 8, 2022 edition of The New York Times has been heralded as "one of the major musicians of our time" by Alex Ross of The New Yorker, as "America's leading organ performer" by The Economist, and as "a grand New York institution" by James R. Oestreich of The New York Times.

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. One would be hard pressed to find any other musician performing six modern or contemporary concertos in one year. Since the start of the 2023-2024 season Mr. Jacobs has given 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 has also been invited back to the Los Angeles Philharmonic for a performance of Lou Harrison's Organ Concerto with Esa-Pekka Salonen. He plays Samuel Barber's Toccata Festiva with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; What Do We Make of Bach? by John Harbison with the New England Philharmonic: appears as soloist with the Toledo Symphony in the Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra by Stephen Paulus; and premieres a new version of Michael Daugherty's Once Upon a Castle for Organ and Orchestra with the Las Vegas Philharmonic. Additionally, Mr. Jacobs has been invited by the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg to give a recital of Messiaen's towering Livre du Saint Sacrément, and he will be presented by the Nashville Symphony in an all-Bach solo recital.

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-Sacrément. 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 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."

Watching his hands fly around the keyboards during the crafty first movement of Paulus's "Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra," then hearing him pullback the sound to a spider silk murmur, it was clear Rose had drafted an ace. Either one of the Jongen or Paulus concertos will give any soloist a workout. Doing both in the same night would be unthinkable for many.

- A.Z. Madonna, The Boston Globe (February 20, 2022)

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.

Linda Holt of BachTrack had this to say on February 29, 2020:

No stranger to Philadelphia audiences, Jacobs performed with the orchestra on the mighty Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ, and one could not imagine a more colorful, thrilling and artistically nuanced presentation. Jacobs is a showman in the best possible sense, exploring and exploiting all the possibilities of this king of instruments, but always in the service of the composer's intent.

In the fall of 2019, Mr. Jacobs highlighted the organ on the New York concert scene, performing in a three-recital series for solo organ to critical acclaim. The series, entitled "The Great French Organ Tradition," gave New Yorkers the rare opportunity to hear this master organist on three important New York instruments: on the Holtkamp organ in the Juilliard School's Paul Recital Hall; the 1933 Aeolian-Skinner "Opus 891" at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin; and St. Ignatius Loyola's 1993 Mander Organ.

Of his performance of Widor's Toccata, Jay Nordlinger of The New Criterion wrote on September 19, 2019:

What was it like? Like you, perhaps, I have heard this piece 568 times. Never quite like this. It was bracing, inexorable, heart-stopping (and heart-swelling at the same time). It was a divine delirium. Your bones rattled-literally. (I am talking about physical sensations.) Never have I been more aware of the poverty of a recording, any recording. Paul Jacobs played the Toccata with the stringency, the tenderness, and the élan that the piece requires. (I am taking the technique for granted, which one should not.) Afterward, audience members kept asking one another, "What was that? What was that piece?" Widor, I believe, would have been tickled.

Then Mr. Nordlinger, in The New Criterion "New York Roundup" for the month of October 2019, added:

What makes Paul Jacobs a great organist? Let me count a few of the ways. He is exceptionally smart. He has superb judgment. He is no-nonsense, not fussing over music or cutting it up. He has fabulous fingers, and feet. His performances are virtually unblemished. He has a keen sense of rhythm, which is important for any musician, but maybe especially so for an organist. He knows how to deal with colors, dynamics-all of it. Let me stress his stringency, that no-nonsense quality. Never will you hear playing less airy-fairy or namby-pamby-yet he is never insensitive, in the least. Sitting in a pew, I thought, "He is like a Szell of the organ." If George Szell, the great conductor, had been an organist, he would have played like Paul Jacobs. I cannot render higher praise than that.

George Grella, writing for New York Classical Review (September 18, 2019), had this to say:

Jacobs played [Messian's] Messe de la Pentecôte with a seamless sounding sympathy, gliding through the haunting, spooky passages of isolated timbres and bird calls floating above a cloud of harmonies, at other times playing with such terror and technical skill that the music sounded improvised on the spot. One was again impressed with Jacobs' orchestral choices, which sounded right for the music, including the crystalline descending cadences that sounded like angels gliding down from the heavens.

Marking an important milestone for the development of organ playing in Asia, Mr. Jacobs participated in the 2017 launch of China's first International Organ Competition-in Shanghai-when he was appointed to serve as president of the competition's jury. After another successful guest engagement with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Philadelphia's Verizon Hall performing both Oquin's Resilience, for organ and orchestra, and James MacMillan's A Scotch Bestiary, Mr. Jacobs was invited by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin to tour three major European cities with the Philadelphia Orchestra in May 2018. He played the Oquin work in Brussels, Luxembourg, and in Hamburg's recently inaugurated Elbphilharmonie.

Prodigiously talented from his earliest years, at 15, young Jacobs was appointed head organist of a parish of 3,500 in his hometown, Washington, Pennsylvania. He has performed the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen in marathon performances throughout North America. In addition to his highly esteemed recordings of Messiaen and Daugherty on Naxos, Mr. Jacobs has recorded organ concertos by Lou Harrison and Aaron Copland with the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas on the orchestra's own label, SFS Media.

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 chairman 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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