Grammy Award-Winning Organist Paul Jacobs Embarks On A Project To Present Two Monumental Bach Programs In Recital In New York City This September

Mr. Jacobs Will Perform J. S. Bach’s Seldom-Heard The Art Of Fugue at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, September 9, 2025 & Will Recreate Mendelssohn’s Legendary 1840 Leipzig Bach Program at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, September 16, 2025

Celebrating 25 years since he first made musical history at age 23 by performing Bach’s complete organ works in an 18-hour marathon on the 250^th anniversary of the composer’s death, organist Paul Jacobs, the only organist ever to have won a GRAMMY Award—in 2011 for Messiaen’s towering Livre du Saint-Sacrament—is today considered one of the most sought-after artists in the world.

 

To mark this auspicious event, Mr. Jacobs will perform one of Bach’s final and most enigmatic works—“The Art of Fugue” at St. Peter's Church (619 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10022) Tuesday evening, September 9, 2025, 7:30 p.m. followed, one week later, Tuesday evening, September 16, 2025, 7:30 p.m. by a recreation, at New York’s Church of St. Mary the Virgin, (145 West 46^th Street)  of the legendary Bach program given by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840 at Leipzig’s Thomaskirche. Detailed programs follow:

 

“The Art of Fugue is likely steeped in more intrigue than any other work of Bach,” says Mr. Jacobs. “Many unanswered questions surround it, including for which instrument, or instruments, he intended it to be performed—if at all. For an organist, a particularly daunting puzzle presents itself, beginning with deciding which two feet and hands will play each of the simultaneously interweaving lines of music.” 

 

"I think that Bach was, in a sense, ‘out for blood’ when composing The Art of Fugue. After all, musical tastes were changing dramatically in the mid-18th century. Bach's own sons were catalysts for displacing his preferred ‘old’ contrapuntal style for a lighter, simpler music. Possibly as an act of artistic defiance, Bach set out to prove that there was still much to express in writing intricate fugues. The jaw-dropping complexity of this uncompromising work, left unfinished on his deathbed, has proven a crowning achievement in the history of music. Bottomless rewards await those who engage with it.”

 

Of the Mendelssohn program, Mr. Jacobs writes, “Mendelssohn is credited for initiating the Bach Revival of the 19th century. Of particular interest to him were Bach's organ works, which inspired Mendelssohn to become a skilled organist so he could perform this music on his travels (as well as his own compositions). After practicing long hours at the organ, Mendelssohn wrote that he sometimes found himself "dancing Bach's pedal passages down the street." His well-documented "Bach recital" of 1840 at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig features a rich tapestry of some of Bach's finest creations for the organ. One can imagine the delight experienced that evening by Mendelssohn and his audience.” 

 

The Mendelssohn program stands as a landmark event in the 19th-century renewed interest in J. S. Bach's music. It was Mendelssohn's first full-length organ recital devoted entirely to Bach's works, performed in the very church where Bach had served as Thomaskantor a century earlier. Mendelssohn offered his recital to fundraise for a monument to Bach, which still stands near the church to this day. Numerous dignitaries came to hear Mendelssohn in performance; among them was the great composer Robert Schumann whose review of the six Bach works appeared in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik: “Would that I could record last evening in these pages with golden letters! It was, for a change, a concert for men, a complete whole from beginning to end.” (August 6, 1840)

 

Prior to the New York recitals, Mr. Jacobs will play The Art of Fugue this July 7^th with the Oregon Bach Festival. And, as the first organist to present this work under the auspices of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mr. Jacobs will also perform The Art of Fugue in Los Angeles at the Walt Disney Hall October 12, 2025. This concert marks the first time the LA Phil has featured Bach’s The Art of Fugue on the pipe organ.

 

General admission at $30 and $20 student/senior tickets are available for purchase on Eventbrite for both the September 9, 2025 concert at St. Peter's Church and the September 16, 2025 concert at Church of St. Mary the Virgin.  

 

Heralded as “one of the finest organists and teachers of our day,” by Zachary Woolfe of The New York Times, “one of the major musicians of our time” by Alex Ross of The New Yorker and as “America’s leading organ performer” by The Economist, no other organist is so frequently re-invited as soloist to perform with prestigious orchestras. He is considered the leading pioneer in the movement for the revival of symphonic music featuring the organ.

 

Mr. Jacobs has collaborated with many of the world’s leading conductors, including Gustavo Dudamel, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Franz Welser-Moest, Pierre Boulez, Michael Tilson Thomas, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Charles Dutoit, Elim Chan, James Conlon, David Danzmayr, Thierry Fischer, James Gaffigan, Edward Gardner, Gustavo Gimeno, Jane Glover, Giancarlo Guerrero, Manfred Honeck, Carolyn Kuan, Jun Markl, Gemma New, David Robertson, Donald Runnicles, Daniele Rustioni, Carl St. Clair, Osmo Vanska, among others.

  

Reviewing Mr. Jacobs’s latest recording, Rupert Gough, writing for Gramophone Magazine's sister journal Choir & Organ, extolled his praises: “Paul Jacobs and the Nashville Symphony present stirring performances of three remarkable American organ concertos, from Horatio Parker’s concerto of 1902 to Christopher Rouse’s of 2014. Parker owes much to his teacher, Rheinberger, and yet there is a clear emerging American voice. Over a hundred years later, the concerto genre is transformed into a tour de force of inventive orchestration. Both Oquin and Rouse weave an innovative web of tightly-integrated textures between organ and instruments of the orchestra. For these pieces, the organ is brought closer into the mix and I must congratulate the engineer for capturing both orchestra and organ in exquisite detail. Jacobs concludes with Variations on 'America' by Parker’s pupil, Charles Ives.” 

 

Gramophone’s David Gutman, in the November 2024 issue, called him simply "A stellar American organist." Reviewing the same album, Ron Schepper said in Textura in September 2024, “the interweaving of organ and orchestra proves arresting, as does their frequent call-and-response. The pairing of Jacobs' thick chords and the ensemble makes for a huge sound, but there are passages of comparative quietude too.” BBC Music Magazine Geoff Brown proclaimed, “The excellent Paul Jacobs gives a delightful performance, vigorously supported by Giancarlo Guerrero’s brightly polished Nashville Symphony, stripped of woodwinds in Parker’s scoring – something that only makes the organ’s tones stand out with extra clarity…All told, this is a most attractive album.” –September 2024.

 

An eloquent champion of his instrument, Mr. Jacobs is known for his imaginative interpretations and charismatic stage presence. 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 eleven 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. 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. His recent performance of Livre du Saint-Sacrement at Hamburg’s iconic Elbphilharmonie captivated a sold-out audience of 2,000, reaffirming his singular place in the classical music world.

 

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)

 

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 chair 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 201,7 Washington and Jefferson College bestowed him with an honorary doctorate. Mr. Jacobs has written several well-received articles for the Wall Street Journal.

    

Please visit Mr. Jacobs’s website: https://www.pauljacobsorgan.com/

 

For more information, please contact Hemsing Associates at (212) 772 1132 or visit www.hemsingpr.com.

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