Guest organist Daniel Minnick joins us this Wednesday from the Eastman School of Music to perform on the Aeolian-Skinner organ in Sage Chapel. His brilliant and eclectic recital opens with music by contemporary organist-composer Balint Karosi, Toccata for Organ in Memory of Béla Bartók (2006) and closes with one of the most impressive and difficult pieces in the organ’s repertoire, “Octaves” from Six Études by Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968). Between these virtuosic showpieces, the “Pastorale” by Cornell alumnus David Conte (b. 1955) and the “Choral” from French Romantic composer C. M. Widor’s Symphonie Romane, Op. 73 provide a softer frame for J. S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in D minor, BWV 539.
Daniel Minnick will complete his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Organ Performance and Literature this semester at the Eastman School of Music, where he is a student of David Higgs.
A native of north Queensland, Australia, Daniel has participated in numerous competitions at the national level. In 2020 he was named as one of three finalists in both the Arthur Poister Scholarship Competition and the First Presbyterian Church National Organ Competition (Fort Wayne, IN). Daniel was awarded 1st prize at the 2022 Sursa American Organ Competition, and at the 2022 Seattle Convention of the AGO, he took 3rd prize and audience prize in the National Young Artist’s Competition in Organ Performance. In addition to his classical organ studies, Daniel also enjoys the study of theater organ, composition, improvisation, and working as a piano technician.
We look forward to welcoming Daniel Minnick for Midday Music for Organ this Wednesday, November 1st at 12:30. The recital is free and open to the public.
