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oct 3
Paul Jacobs, organ
Paul Jacobs, Grammy-award winning organist and Juilliard professor, opens our 20th anniversary season with a program featuring Liszt’s towering Fantasy and Fugue on “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam.” You won’t want to miss Mr. Jacob’s incredible technique and artistry that will be on full display in our kickoff to this celebratory season! – Greg Zelek
Program
Felix Mendelssohn, Organ Sonata No.1 in F minor, Op. 65, No.1
Cesár Franck, Prelude, Fugue, and Variation, Op.18
Charles Ives, Variations on “America”
Johann Sebastian Bach, Arioso from Cantata No. 156
Franz Liszt, Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam”
Take Note: Drinks Allowed in Overture Hall
As of this season, drinks are allowed inside Overture Hall during all Madison Symphony Orchestra concerts. Refreshments may be purchased at bars and concession stands located around the Overture Hall lobby before each concert and during intermission. Please enjoy food in the lobby and unwrap any candy or cough drops before the performance begins. Thank you!
“I have seldom heard an orchestral audience leap to its feet and whoop at a solo organ piece, but the adulation was well deserved.”
“Step aside, Hugh Jackman. If anyone deserves to be called the greatest showman, it’s organ virtuoso Paul Jacobs…”
Meet the Performers
Paul Jacobs, organ
Thank You To Our Generous Sponsors!
MAJOR SPONSORS
Stephen Caldwell
Jane Hamblen and Robert F. Lemanske
Skofronick Family Charitable Trust
Condon and Mary Vander Ark
Friends of the Overture Concert Organ
Greg Zelek is the MSO’s Principal Organist and Elaine and Nicholas Mischler Curator of the Overture Concert Organ.
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, the internationally celebrated organist Paul Jacobs combines a probing intellect and extraordinary technical mastery with an unusually large repertoire, both old and new.
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 five modern or contemporary concertos in one year. During this 2023-2024 season alone Mr. Jacobs will be premiering Lowell Liebermann’s Organ Concerto co-commissioned by the Jacksonville Symphony and the Oregon Bach Festival; playing Samuel Barber’s Toccata Festiva with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; performing What Do We Make of Bach? by John Harbison with the New England Philharmonic: appearing as soloist with the Toledo Symphony in the Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra by Stephen Paulus; and premiering 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.