Organ Recitals return (online) for Fall 2020

The Fall 2020 semester is now well under way, and the Cornell organists are hard at work. With Sage Chapel as a Covid testing site, Anabel Taylor Hall shut for the duration of the semester, and Barnes Hall largely occupied as a teaching space, access to the organs is tricky. But we have permission to work in Anabel Taylor chapel, we have Sage after-hours, and our friends and partners in the Ithaca churches are generously letting us use their instruments.

And Midday Music for Organ continues! 

This term's recital series will explore "The Organist's Imaginary Worlds," in a series of recorded presentations, released online for you to watch on alternate Wednesdays at the usual 12:30pm time. "The Organist's Imaginary Worlds" explores the idea of "Music in/as Refuge," the theme that runs through this semester’s events at the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards. In turbulent times, music offers an escape as we take refuge from the world around us; alternatively, music is itself a refuge. Our Midday Music for Organ series ranges across a wide terrain, from early 18th-century Northern Germany to 20th-century England, from 19th-century America to the European lowlands of the late 17th century.

In the first four recitals:

Sept. 23: Professor David Yearsley explores Fantastical Refuges (Music by G. F. Handel) 

Oct. 7: PhD candidate Anna Steppler Remembers Home (British Music of the 20th and 21st Centuries) 

Oct. 21: Professor Annette Richards is Suspended in Time (Music by Alain, Buxtehude, Mozart and Andriessen) 

Nov. 4: DMA candidate Michael Plagerman takes us to the Fortress: Music of Strength and Comfort (Music by List, Widor and John Knowles Paine). 

These programs will be recorded in Anabel Taylor chapel on the Cornell Baroque Organ, and at First Presbyterian Church, Ithaca on the Stephen Russell Op. 47 organ (with many thanks to Stephen Spinelli and Ian Woods).

 

The first program in the series will be available at 12:30pm on Wednesday September 23rd, here:  https://www.historicalkeyboards.org/music-as-refuge/

(Videos will be accessible for a week after the release date).

All are warmly invited to watch and listen. 

 

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