Paul Jacobs


"Jacobs is already considered one of the greatest players of the age." (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

"This country's best known organist."
(Hartford Courant)

"Paul Jacobs, who at just 29 is among the organ's youngest and most accomplished champions...Mr. Jacobs' performances have stirred a renaissance of appreciation for organ music among critics andaudiences not typically engaged by the instrument." (American Public Media)

"THE HYPE DOESN'T DO JACOBS JUSTICE-HE'S BRILLIANT
Jacobs arrived with an impressive set of credentials...But believe me, none of the hype was exaggerated. Jacobs is the real thing, a brilliant talent, who played this difficult program with flair and panache-not to mention from memory. It was a riveting evening of music...the program was breathtaking, and a joy to watch." (Providence Journal, Rhode Island)

"There was a time when superstar organists walked the earth....Enter Paul Jacobs. A proclivity toward showmanship appeared early in his career...a rare thrill."
(Philadelphia City Paper)

"Widely regarded as the most important organist in America." (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 2007)

"Paul Jacobs, with a rigorous slate of concerts in addition to his work as chairman of Juilliard's organ department, has become one of the most prominent organists in the United States." (The American Organist, 2007)

"The baby-faced Juilliard professor and wunderkind of the organ." (The New York Times, 7 Oct 07)

"A New Prince for the King of Instruments" (Minnesota Public Radio)

PAUL JACOBS'S ORGAN ARTISTRY, PAINTED WITH VIVID COLORS: Paul Jacobs's recital glowed with synesthesia: You could hear the colors of the music....intense and virtuosic...light-hued and lyrical...Jacobs extracted maximum clarity from the soon-to-be rebuilt organ, making a pretty good instrument sound like a gorgeously parti-colored one."
(Washington Post, 3 July 2007)

"The splendid New York-based organist Paul Jacobs, who has played every note the late composer Olivier Messiaen ever wrote for the instrument."
(Washington Post, July 2007)

"A keyboard whiz kid who has managed to make the often-staid repertoire of the organ seem fresh and exciting." (Providence Journal, RI, 2007)

"Three standing ovations...Jacobs has garnered superlatives from the nation's top music critics...He is chairman of the Organ Departmentat the Juilliard School. He is also a good-looking, consummate showman with a passionate, missionary-like regard for classical music in general and the organ repertoire in particular."
(The Maui News, HI)

"Paul Jacobs is rapidly becoming the best-known organist since E. Power Biggs or Virgil Fox...Jacobs' crusade to take the pipe organ into the larger world of classical music-and beyond-is bearing fruit."
(The Columbus Dispatch OH)

"There must be thousands of organs in the United States. But be honest: Can you name any organists? One young player, 28-year-old Paul Jacobs, is working to bring the instrument out of the choir loft and into the mainstream. He's made a meteoric rise on the concert scene over the past five years and is already head of the organ department at The Juilliard School...Jacobs does have a couple of important 20th-century forebears in proselytizing the joys of organ music. E. Power Biggs and Virgil Fox were larger-than-life personalities who played with flair and showmanship. Their legacies live on through recordings and fan clubs. But no one has come close to matching them in terms of rank--until Jacobs."
(Times Union, Albany NY)

"Good news! The spirit of the legendary American organ virtuoso Virgil Fox has returned in the person of the impressively talented and impossibly young Paul Jacobs....His performance--quirky, headstrong, and immensely musical--brought to life the heritage of Fox, who convinced several generations of Americans that nothing is more exciting than organ literature played with technical command and artistic flair....The encore, a favorite of Fox's audiences, was Bach's Fugue in D Major, played with all the reckless abandon and lavish sonorities of the master, who would have been both pleased and envious." (Herald Tribune, Sarasota FL)

"CLASSICAL MUSIC'S KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR: It's not often you see a classical organist being asked for autographs, at least not since the glory days of E. Power Biggs and Virgil Fox, but there was Paul Jacobs signing programs for a long line of fans after his recital...Phenomenal keyboard technique...a spectacular rendition...a sublime sense of restraint...It felt like a masterpiece in Jacob's playing."
(St. Petersburg Times, FL)

"Among the very finest organists now before the public."
(The Courier-Journal, Louisville)

"Masterful performance...was played to the hilt with Jacobs' prodigious rhythmic drive and delightfully nuanced phrases....The composer was simply awed by Jacobs' flawless performance from memory....Jacobs' performance style is marked by drama and gesture."
(The American Organist, review of national AGO convention in Los Angeles)

"Phenomenally gifted and intelligent
young artist." (The Diapason)

"One of the most highly skilled and charismatic young organists in the music world."
(The Springfield Republican, MA)

"Blinding technique." (The Diapason, review of national AGO convention in Los Angeles)

"Jacobs has risen to the top of his field with unusual speed."
(The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)

"Paul Jacobs has set the organ world on fire with his uncanny mastery. A phenomenon...charismatic performance style and exceptional technique."
(The News & Observer, Raleigh NC)

"Young American organist Paul Jacobs demonstrated impressive versatility...His articulation and nuances of pacing were masterful in shaping melodies for emotional impact, and his strong sense of rhythm provided discipline and excitement....Jacobs' Bach was superb...enthusiastic response from the large audience."
(Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

"Passion is an important component of music making and one would be hard pressed to find a performer as passionate about his career and his instrument as organist Paul Jacobs." (Fanfare)

"The organist showed himself a stylish musician of great taste and refinement, with virtuosity put entirely at the service of the music. Hailed as the next great American organist."
(South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale)

"It is a rare pleasure to experience an artist who truly delights in his repertoire, one who aims to enlighten his audience as well as entertain it. Organist Paul Jacobs is such an artist. His concert was a fabulous stroll through the annals of organ literature.

Jacobs performed the concert from memory, having chosen his repertoire only after sampling the church's organ and the building's acoustics. His verbal program notes, given between compositions, were both entertaining and educational. Jacobs, 26, has a pedagogical maturity to match his comprehension of the literature, which will serve him well when he begins teaching at The Juilliard School later this year.

His technique was clean, essentially flawless, but he avoided playing solely bravura pieces.....Jacobs is a multifaceted musician with a bright future. It was a pleasure to share his enjoyment of the performance."
(The Miami Herald)

"Week after week, the artists who visit 'Saint Paul Sunday' are almost universally generous and inspired. By now, this shouldn't surprise me, yet it often does-movingly so. and it's just as surprising to welcome someone whose chosen area is one I think I know (or if not quite know, at least cherish) who makes me realize that my preconceptions of it, however expansive, had barely scratched the surface of the riches within.

At 29, Paul Jacobs is one of the world's great organists, perhaps best known for his epic performances of Bach and Messiaen, whose complete works he's performed from memory, beginning to end, in continuous sequence. Those are near-mythic feats, to be sure, but after meeting Paul and listening to him perform, they now seem to me as much a sing of his profound love for the organ and its music as an expression of his thrilling musical powers.

In Paul's hands, that love and those powers are infectious. He tirelessly affirms that organ music is a world unto itself-a world of great scope, beauty, virtuosity, even terror-and then beckons us inside with the charisma of a pied piper."
(Saint Paul Sunday, American Public Media)

Mr. Jacobs is the chairman of the organ department at the Juilliard School, which presented the concert, and in recent years his richly characterized, thoroughly serious performance style has won him a large audience in New York. In some ways a work like the 'Livre' is perfect for him: It demands virtuosity but resists showiness. Mr. Jacobs tapped into its otherworldly drama but kept its central purpose-evoking, exploring and celebrating the great spiritual mysteries-fully in focus."
(The New York Times, 11 October 2007)

"Brilliant young organist and evangelist for the instrument."
(The New York Times, 5 Oct 07)

"Paul Jacobs' program at Disney Hall, an exhilarating evening...Bach's lovely trio sonatas, crisp and elegant and intricate and beautifully detailed under this remarkable musician's young fingers....there was more Bach as encores to send us home uplifted and happy." (LA Weekly, Los Angeles)

"A performance of vividness and virtuosic spontaneity ...the organ [is] a threatened species [but we must] preserve these magnificent dinosaurs. For that, it will need young performers of Jacobs' dedication and drive."
(Sydney Morning Herald, Australia)

"Paul Jacobs nearly filled the nave and altar areas of St. John's Cathedral with eager listeners...Jacobs' extraordinary technical aptitude and musical artistry-not to mention dignified showmanship-came to full light. The vigorous work is demanding in every way, but Jacobs performed its frantically fast passages and immense washes of sound with precision and thrilling abandon....[he is] not only a master musician but also an erudite ambassador of the organ, offering an eloquent introduction to each piece."
(The Denver Post)

"Hailed as one of the modern age's foremost concert organists." (Star Bulletin, Honolulu)

"King of the king of instruments...America's best-known organist." (Examiner, Washington DC)

"A one-man booster squad for the 'king of instruments'.
(Grand Rapids Press MI)

"One of the world's great organists"
(LA Daily News, Los Angeles)

"Radiant playing...staggering talents."
(Newsday, New York)

"Jacobs has established himself as one of the most innovative and inspiring organists at work today."
(Tulsa World)

"An unforgettable evening of music making. Jacobs proceeded to take the audience by storm...To perform an entire program as varied as this one was, completely from memory, is a remarkable feat. He is a masterful and mature musician destined for greatness."
(The Independent, Livermore CA)

"Something wonderful and rare....although he is chairman of the organ department at the Juilliard School, there was nothing pedantic about his approach to repertoire. Whether it was J. S. Bach, Oliver Messiaen, Charles Ives or whomever, he made persuasive, stylishly specific arguments....His technique was sensational, yet called as much attention to the music as to itself. No matter what the piece, this guy was clearly, infectiously, reveling in every opportunity before him. Engage the music at each moment, Jacobs emphasized, engage your listeners; make them your allies. So he did, and so we were....Call it a series of seeming impossibilities resolved--in other words, what it means to play the organ brilliantly."
(The Courier-Journal, Louisville)

"A rip-roaring performance [with orchestra]...dynamic and dramatic...Jacobs has a good sense of the dramatic."
(The Daily Gazette, Schenectady NY)

"We crowded into the chapel to hear Paul Jacobs dazzle us with memorized performances....Mr. Jacobs was the very embodiment of the music. The full house was ringing with cheers even before the final chord was released."
(The American Organist, 2005 convention review)

"He played not only with brilliant technique and an acute awareness of Messiaen's distinctive qualities, but with a fine sense of the space's acoustics. He adapted Messiaen's registrations effectively to the unique instrument's capabilities, and the often cataclysmic effects came across as Messiaen must have imagined. them....the music had, in Jacobs' hands (and feet), a power and majesty, a wide range of colors from celestial radiance to Stygian gloom, and a fluency and creative energy that deserved a standing-room audience." (The Washington Post, DC)

"An imaginative and gifted interpreter...Jacobs' technical finesse and his carefully chosen registrations drew the maximum drama from the music." (Seattle Times)

"Organ music to thrill to...Paul Jacobs, a classical organist with rock-star good looks...Extolled for his showmanship and lauded by the Los Angeles times as a 'virtuoso who stands to further popularize this mighty, venerable and underexposed instrument'."
(The Denver Post)

"One of the world's most celebrated organists"
(Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

"Always he was articulate and clear and intelligent...Jacobs is both scholar and showman. He should have a fine future. I hope he returns soon."
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

"Finding solitude, communion amid Messiaen's mystical ecstasy: Organist performs marathon at Grace--At the center of things was Jacobs, but the physical presence of the performer was not the focus of attention. Instead, it was the music itself, great billowing clouds of sound that filled the cathedral's expanses...One of the listeners was San Francisco Opera Music Director Donald Runnicles, marveling at the play of colors.From the organ came the sound of the Word made flesh, as filtered through the creative imagination of one believer of genius."
(San Francisco Chronicle)

"A wizardly musician who deserves massive audiences...performances of exceptional expressivity, color and flair....Playing everything from memory, Jacobs invested the day's fare with refinement and adventurous spirit...superb attention to detail...enormous flexibility and power...a triumph."
(The Plain Dealer, Cleveland)

"Organists are the ultimate multi-taskers (but) Paul Jacobs made it all look like a walk in the park...displayed his considerable talents, without so much as looking at a sheet of music....Jacobs, a bit of a showman played with vigorous enjoyment...lending more life and drama to this movement than most organists can hope to muster."
(Winnipeg Free Press, Canada)

"Paul Jacobs, whose somewhat unorthodox career has developed with amazing rapidity, has brought a breath of fresh air into the musty organ world....With the appointment of Mr. Jacobs as head of the organ department, Juilliard gained a fervent crusader for the instrument and for the fine arts as a whole."
(The Wall Street Journal, New York)

"Jacobs is one of America's premier musicians. I am thankful for the opportunity to hear such genius."
(The Norman Transcript OK)

"The celebrated young maestro Paul Jacobs...renowned for his virtuoso performances of the complete works of Bach and Messiaen. His fame precedes him, and deservedly so....'unedited' is almost redundant; perhaps 'editing unnecessary' would have been more apt."
(The American Organist)

"Paul Jacobs, chairman of Juillard's organ department and the instrument's most unabashed and high-profile supporter."
(MusicalAmerica.com)

"Unflagging energy and concentration...It's heresy to admit it, but Jacob's lucid playing left me with a more vivid and terrifying sense of Messiaen's music than from the composer's own 'definitive' recordings. Jacobs never stumbled. He is a serious student of the literature and, as a performer, a charismatic showman--essential traits, both--and he delivered a fuller range of Messiaen's music than most organists I've heard. He knew when some high-minded panache would make a phrase sparkle and when he needed to dig into his own psyche to deliver an emotionally convincing moment."
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

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