Daniel Sullivan
concert organist

"Daniel Sullivan's warm interaction with an audience and his fiercely beautiful playing need to be experienced by everyone who loves the organ, and especially by those who don't!" (Paul Jacobs, organ department chairman, The Juilliard School, New York)

"Splendid, assured and memorized performance." (The Diapason)

"An enthusiastic and appreciative audience enjoyed the organ recital in Hexham Abbey by the young American Daniel Sullivan, an Oundle award-winner....It was superb!....Brilliant, astonishing, almost unbelievable, a tour de force...a memorable and entertaining concert by a very promising young organist with style and a formidable technique." (Hexham Courant, England)

"Organist elevates instrument's status." (Albuquerque Journal)

American organist Daniel Sullivan's creative interpretations, musical depth and engaging stage presence, combined with his command of a varied repertoire ranging from Renaissance to contemporary works, are earning him a place among the next generation of prominent concert organists. He is regularly engaged across the United States and his performances during season 2007-2008 include venues in St. Petersburg, Denver, Tucson, Washington DC, Reno, New England, Ohio, and in Canada.

In addition to solo performing, Mr. Sullivan actively works to enlarge the audience for organ by giving the instrument a more prominent role within the world of chamber music. He collaborates with pianist Jason Cutmore as an organ-piano duo, and performs with the Second Instrumental Unit, a chamber ensemble of diverse instruments devoted to playing the new music of current composers. He also performs music written for two organs with Isabelle Demers. In 2007 they premiered their original two-organ transcription of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" to the enthusiastic delight of several audiences.

His performances have taken him to cities across the United States, including San Francisco, Albuquerque, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Atlanta, and many other venues in other states.

Sullivan has been a featured soloist at New York City's Basically Bach Festival, the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, and the White Mountain Musical Arts Annual Bach Festival in New Hampshire. He has performed in the United Kingdom in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Hexam, England.

Daniel Sullivan has arranged Bach's monumental Goldberg Variations for organ, and it has become a specialty of his repertoire which is requested by presenters. In 2005 he toured coast to coast to premiere the arrangement, with financial support from the Eric Thompson Charitable Trust for Organists and Organ Music of England.

Mr. Sullivan's artistry has also been recognized in the national competition circuit. He was the first prize winner in the Gruenstein Competition (Chicago 2002), and has won second prizes at the Miami International Organ Competition (2006), the San Marino Organ Competition (California 2003), and the Arthur Poister Competition (New York 2001).

He is a native of Wisconsin who holds the Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School where he studied with Paul Jacobs, and degrees from Yale University where he studied with Thomas Murray and from the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio where he studied with Haskell Thomson. He is currently a C. V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at Juilliard, where he is delighted to continue his work with Paul Jacobs.

Pedagogy forms another branch of Mr. Sullivan's career. He enjoys teaching people of all ages, and his students range from a family of home-schoolers in Westchester County NY, to an organist-choirmaster in CT, to a retired doctor in Manhattan. He teaches music comprehensively, covering music theory, ear training and keyboard skills in addition to performance studies. At present he teaches students on all of the traditional keyboard instruments-piano, harpsichord, and organ.