The first 2020 Winter Serenades event, also known as the perfect cure for Cabin Fever, is at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 14 State Street, Brockport, at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 1. Organist Jacob Fuhrman will demonstrate the sound of the church’s new pipe organ. Music written between the 16th and 20th centuries provides a broad introduction to the sounds and repertoire of the organ. The three-part program includes examples of the organ as an imitator of other instruments, as an imitator of voices, and as its own expressive instrument.
The event is a free, family-friendly winter music listening opportunity (Food Shelf donations are welcome). About an hour long, there will be a reception afterward and an opportunity to talk with Fuhrman and attendees.
The pipe organ as we know it has been in a state of continuous development for over 800 years. During that time, it has been used for purposes both sacred and secular; for both solos and collaborative works; in its own right and as an imitator of other kinds of music. Audience members on March 1 will enjoy selections from all across the organ’s enormous repertoire, from the familiar (Bach, Brahms, and Schumann) to the more novel (Melchior Schildt and Jacques van Oortmerssen). There’s something for everyone in this program.
Jacob Fuhrman is Organist and Director of Liturgical Music at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Penfield, where he oversees a program of about 100 volunteer musicians, conducts four ensembles, and manages a concert series. He is also an Adjunct Lecturer in music at the State University of New York at Geneseo.
He studied organ performance at Wheaton College (Illinois) with Edward Zimmerman and at the Eastman School of Music with Edoardo Bellotti, Michel Bouvard, and William Porter, completing the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Eastman in 2019. Additional coachings and masterclasses have been with David Higgs, Christa Rakich, William Bolcom, Hans Davidsson, Armando Carideo, and Roberto Antonello (organ); Edoardo Bellotti (harpsichord); Anne Laver and Joel Speerstra (clavichord); Edoardo Bellotti and William Porter (improvisation); and Christel Thielmann and Geoffrey Burgess (ensemble playing).
His doctoral lecture recital dealt with a book of organ accompaniments to the Genevan Psalter, published in Amsterdam in 1777, and he is currently extending that research into several similar books published in the Netherlands between 1730 and 1780, the musical and church culture that fostered them, and the relationship between them, domestic music-making, and thoroughbass pedagogy.
St. Luke’s new organ creates exceptional sound in the small church. And if you look up while listening you can see light shining through the church’s Tiffany windows.
Fuhrman says, “I’m delighted to be able to play Brockport’s newest organ, and I hope you’ll join me.”
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