Organist Paul Jacobs Opens Juilliard's 2009-2010 Season With a Performance of J.S. Bach's Six Trio Sonatas for Organ on Tuesday, September 15 at 8 PM in Juilliard's Paul Hall

Bach's Most Difficult Works for Organ to Receive Rare Virtuoso Performance in New York

Paul Jacobs by Christina Wilton

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Organist Paul Jacobs, chair of Juilliard's Organ Department, opens Juilliard's 2009-2010 season with a performance of J.S. Bach's Six Trio Sonatas for Organ, BWV 525 - 530 on Tuesday, September 15 at 8 PM in Juilliard's Paul Hall. Less well-known than some of Bach's monumental works for organ the Trio Sonatas are recognized as Bach's most difficult works on an instrument for which he wrote frequently. Mr. Jacobs has performed all of Bach's organ music (more than 200 works) several times, including in a single 18-hour marathon.

Bach's Trio Sonatas were written for organ or pedal clavichord (a practice instrument for organists), and they require the right and left hands to play melodic lines on separate keyboards, while the feet play the basso continuo. Remarking on the technical difficulties of these works, Mr. Jacobs says: "The organ sonatas are disarmingly attractive and immediately appealing to the listener, though they pose ferocious interpretive and technical demands for the player." Organists find the sheer coordination of playing three lines of music on two keyboards and pedal with all four limbs a challenge.

FREE tickets are available beginning September 8 at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard (155 West 65^th Street). Summer Box Office hours are Monday through Wednesday from 10 AM to 5 PM. Box Office hours during the school year are Monday through Friday from 11 AM to 6 PM. For further information, call (212) 769-7406 or go to www.juilliard.edu.

New to Juilliard's Organ Department this fall is the completed installation of a new pipe organ in the Romantic-Symphonic style, built by the distinguished firm Schoenstein Co. of San Francisco. The new organ is one of four that now are housed in Juilliard's newly-renovated series of organ studios on the 5^th floor of the building, adjacent to the School's brand new orchestra rehearsal room.

Paul Jacobs joined Juilliard's faculty in 2003 and was named chairman of the Organ Department the following year, making him one of the youngest faculty appointments in Juilliard's history. In 2007, he was named recipient of Juilliard's William Schuman Scholar's Chair. Highlights of Mr. Jacob's 2009-2010 season include concerts presented by the San Francisco Symphony and the Pacific Symphony. He returns to Philadelphia for a recital at the Kimmel Center. When Mr. Jacobs plays in Anchorage, Alaska later this year, he will have performed in every one of America's 50 states.

Paul Jacobs made musical history at the age of 23 when, on the 250^th anniversary of the death of J.S. Bach in 2000, he played the composer's complete organ music in an 18-hour non-stop marathon in Pittsburgh. Mr. Jacobs has given performances throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia. He possesses a vast repertoire spanning from the 16^th century through contemporary times, including several works by Samuel Adler and Christopher Theofanidis, among others. He has performed the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen in a series of nine-hour marathons in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. His recording of Messiaen's masterwork, Livre du Saint Sacrement, will be released by Naxos in September of 2010.

Mr. Jacobs holds a master of music degree and artist diploma from Yale University and was awarded several honors, including Yale School of Music's distinguished alumni award. He also studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he double-majored in organ with John Weaver and harpsichord with Lionel Party.