OGCMA to Presents YOUNG RISING STARS Organ Recital Series All Summer At The Jersey Shore

Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, based in Ocean Grove, New Jersey will present a series of FREE ORGAN RECITALS on the historic Great Auditorium Pipe Organ as part of its summer-long program of family entertainment. These recitals will be performed in Ocean Grove's historic Great Auditorium. This season's series will bring "young rising star" organists to the stage - a new generation of organists who have never appeared in the historic auditorium before.

The Great Auditorium is located at Pilgrim and Ocean Pathways in Ocean Grove, NJ. All facilities are handicapped-accessible. For more information, visit www.oceangrove.org/organ, or call 732-775-0035. All concerts are free and start at 7:30 pm on Wednesdays and 12 Noon on Saturdays.

OGCMA's Organist-in-Residence Dr. Gordon Turk said that "we are very excited to present up-and-coming young organists as they make their Ocean Grove debut on the historic Great Auditorium Pipe Organ. "They are joining the roster of distinguished organists who have appeared here since 1908, including Will C. MacFarlane, Virgil Fox, Ken Cowan, David Briggs, Frederick Swann, and Carol Williams, plus many others."

RECITAL SCHEDULE

Gordon Turk

Wednesdays July 7, 14, August 4 and 25th

Saturdays July 10, 24, August 7, 14, 21 and 28th.

Wednesday Sept. 1 - Special Organ Finale with Byung-Kook Kwak (violin) and Merynda Adams (Harp)

"Young Rising Stars" Performance Dates/Bios

Josh Kraybill - Sat. July 17

Josh Kraybill just graduated from Pottstown H.S. in Pottstown, PA. and is entering the Cleveland Institute of Music this Fall. He has studied piano and organ for more than eight years and is currently taught by Dr. Gordon Turk, Jason Schafer-Valerius and Colin Howland who is the Music Director at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Josh's musical accomplishments include attending various summer organ programs at the Eastman School of Music (University of Rochester), Jacob's School of Music (Indiana University) and the Curtis Institute of Music. His program will include works by J.S. Bach, Paul Manz, John Hughes, César Franck and Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens.

Aaron Patterson - Wed. July 21

Philadelphia-based Aaron Patterson entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2018 and studies organ with Alan Morrison. All students at Curtis receive merit-based, full-tuition scholarships, and Mr. Patterson is the Charles and Judith Freyer Annual Fellow. He won first place at the 2017 Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition and the 2016 West Chester University International Organ Competition. He is a recipient of the Pogorzelski-Yankee Memorial Scholarship from the American Guild of Organists and the Bart Pitman Memorial Music Scholarship from the Delaware Valley Music Club. Mr. Patterson has appeared as a soloist with the Olney Symphony Orchestra and has performed at the Kimmel Center's Organ Day and the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ Spring Concert. His program will include works by John Weaver, Dieterich Buxtehude, J.S. Bach, Daniel Ficarri; Dana Suesse, George Gershwin, Jeanne Demessieux and Louis Vierne.

Kyle Sheppard - Sat. July 31

Kyle Sheppard is a Master's Organ student at Rowan University where he studies with Dr. Gordon Turk. Sheppard is the Music Director at First U.M.C. of Avalon and Choir Director at the Cumberland Campus of Rowan College of South Jersey. In Avalon, he leads a year-round music program with two choirs that involve musicians from across the east coast including the West Point Cadent Choir, West Point New York and the Atlantic Brass Band. Before Avalon, he was the organist at the former Central UMC Bridgeton, and Music Intern at First Presbyterian Church, Bridgeton. Performance opportunities include The Great Auditorium - Ocean Grove, The Citadel - Charleston, South Carolina, Gettysburg Chapel - Gettysburg and Milltown United Methodist Church as well as a choir tour to Vienna, Salzburg and Munich. Sheppard enjoys singing with the Ocean Grove Auditorium Choir in the summers as well as the Greater South Jersey Chorus in Haddonfield. Program to be announced.

Clara Gerdes - Wed. August 11

Clara Gerdes is a 2021 graduate of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music where she studies with Martin Jean. She recently graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Alan Morrison. She received first prizes in the Albert Schweitzer, AGO-Quimby Mid-Atlantic Regional and UNCSA School of the Arts organ competitions; was the recipient of the 2020 Baker Prize in Organ Performance and the 2021 Julia Sherman Award for Excellence in Organ Playing from Yale; and received the first annual AGO Pogorzelski-Yankee scholarship. She has performed around the United States, including at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York and Washington National Cathedral, the American Guild of Organists 2018 National Convention in Kansas City, and at Spoleto, Oregon Bach Festival, Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts and most recently the Uncommon Music Festival in Sitka, Alaska. Pre-Covid, Clara served as Assistant Organist at Saint Bartholomew's Church, Park Avenue in New York City and was previously Organ Scholar at Saint Mark's Church, Locust Street in Philadelphia. She now serves as Director of Music at Most Holy Redeemer and Nativity Parish in Manhattan, New York, where her responsibilities include building up the parish's music program and overseeing the restoration of its 1891 Roosevelt organ.

Program to be announced.

Gordon Turk (Organist-in-Residence)

A critically acclaimed concert organist, Gordon Turk is celebrating his 46th Anniversary as Resident Organist and Founder and Artistic Music Director for the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Summer Stars classical music series. In these roles, he performs weekly recitals and at worship services on the massive Great Auditorium Pipe Organ and overseas a five-concert classical series in the Great Auditorium.

Turk travels nationally and internationally for concert performances, and has played at Carnegie Hall, the Kimmel Center and other landmark concert halls in the US, Europe, Japan and Russia. He is particularly proud to have been selected to play at in opening recitals for the inauguration of the new pipe organ at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center in May 2006.

A graduate of the famed Curtis Institute of Music, he studied piano with Vladimir Sokoloff and organ with Alexander McCurdy, and studied with New York composer and organist McNeil Robinson at the Manhattan School of Music, earning the Master's degree and the Doctor of Musical Arts, both with honors. He taught as Professor of Organ at West Chester University in PA, from 1992 - 1999.

Ocean Grove's Great Auditorium Pipe Organ is among the largest working pipe organs in the world, and is the heart-beat of the Christian, Victorian resort by the sea. This historic, 12,000+ pipe instrument was built and installed in 1908 with original design innovations that became standard elements still extant in modern organ construction. It is made of over 40,000 feet of California No. 1 Sugar Pine and weighs 20 - 25 tons. In its illustrious 108-year-history, this remarkable instrument has been played by numerous distinguished organists, including Will C. MacFarlane, Clarence Kohlman, Josephine Eddowes, Harold Fix, Clarence Reynolds, Beverly Davis, Jon Quinn, and Robert Carwithin.

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