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Paul Jacobs
concert organist
Chairman of the Organ Department
The Juilliard School
New York City
"Brilliant young organist and evangelist for the instrument."
(The New York Times)
Paul Jacobs has re-invigorated the American organ scene with his once-in-a-generation gifts as a performer. His fellow organists have been quick to applaud his phenomenal technique and memory, his charismatic stage presence, his huge repertoire spanning five centuries, and the sense of showmanship he brings to an instrument more usually associated with staid and reserved performances. Paul Jacobs is also creating new interest for the organ in the wider musical world, which has recognized him as a musician of rare stature. Having been booked for professional concerts in all 50 states by the age of 31, Paul Jacobs continues to be in great demand around the country and has growing recognition as a performer of unusual merit in Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia.
New York magazine called Paul Jacobs "Best Organist" and named one of his performances as among the ten best classical performances in New York City in 2007. "New York has an overlooked abundance of fine pipe organs, and a phenomenal organist in Paul Jacobs, the youthful-looking chairman of the organ department at Juilliard. For audiences as small as two dozen, Jacobs has played the complete organ works of Bach and Messiaen in marathons. But on one night in October, he bewitched a blissed-out gathering in a Times Square church with Messiaen's Livre du Saint Sacrement."
Following his debut at the Grand Teton Music Festival, Mr. Jacobs had a particularly noteworthy 2008-2009 season, highlighted by debut performances with The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the San Francisco Symphony led by Yan Pascal Tortelier, the Phoenix Symphony conducted by Michael Christie, and the opening concerts of the Pacific Symphony’s new season where Mr. Jacobs dedicated the new Fisk organ at Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, California.
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"JUILLIARD'S JACOBS: COAXING THE SUBLIME FROM AN ORGAN Paul Jacobs is 31. He is chair of a department at the Juilliard School in New York. He is one of the most important soloists in his field. If that field were violin, he would fill the Kennedy Center Terrace theatre when he comes to Washington....A really terrific concert. Smooth, sinuous, flowing, tender: Those are not adjectives always applied to organ playing, but they fit when Jacobs is the one doing it. Another listener might counter that the impressive thing about the afternoon was his tremendous virtuosity....Barber's piece unfolded to show the open passion of a young man intoxicated with music, longing for big statements, lovingly lingering over a golden fugue and ending with a gentle chord of submission, like a bowed head. A piece that could have sounded cloying was instead made honest....One would have been happy to go back and hear it all again when Jacobs had finished."
(Washington Post, 2008)
"Jacobs was a master of color and smart dynamic choices."
(with the Philadelphia Orchestra,
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2008)
"Paul Jacobs is a pipe organist, and better than almost any of his colleagues, he also has an instinct for programming memorable events....played it all with technical panache and deep understanding, it became clear Jacobs was an artist of boundless talent."
(Atlanta Journal Constitution, 2008)
"With the Pacific Symphony Orchestra:
"The young American organist and champion of his instrument, Paul Jacobs...provided a mad man display in this hyper-busy piece, all the while keeping the weaving lines and leaping figurations clear."
(The Orange County Register, 2008)
"Paul Jacobs, the shockingly youthful head of the Juilliard School's organ department, is an important, genteel revisionist of his instrument...Much of the program was disarmingly and invitingly secular, so that Jacobs' coloristic virtuosity could never be called inappropriate [in the church setting]."
(The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2008)
"Verbal Charisma. Jacobs is articulate. At the organ, he is eloquent....colorful, demanding and compelling....three standing ovations." (Green Bay Press Gazette, 2008)
"If there is such a thing as an organ prodigy, Paul Jacobs seems to be it ...a major-league talent." (Gramophone)
"An exceptional musical experience....supple technique and vivid interpretive imagination."
(The New York Times)
"The 31-year-old virtuoso organist is said to have a 'fresh performance style that has reinvigorated the American organ scene.' Don't believe it? Well, New York Magazine name one of Jacobs' performances as one of New York's ten best classical performances of 2007."
(Salem Statesman Journal, Oregon)
"Jacobs is precisely what the organ scene needs right now: a dynamic young virtuoso who stands to further popularize this mighty, venerable and underexposed instrument."
(Los Angeles Times)
"One of the most supremely gifted young organists of his generation." (Chicago Tribune)
"Charismatic showmanship and unflagging exuberance."
(The Wall Street Journal)
"His charismatic and sometimes unorthodox interpretations have been praised and criticized. But music is not just about 'playing neatly and accurately,' he said. 'It should be played in a manner that stirs the soul.'"
(The New York Times)
Paul Jacobs "Artists have to present music of the highest caliber that is full of emotion to attract audiences and bring in new listeners....A good instrument is important, but ultimately music comes from the performer and not the instrument." (Clavier, May-June 2007)
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