"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)
"JUILLIARD ORGANIST'S AUDACIOUS CHOICES ROCK CROWD: Kept the audience spellbound and provoked a rare halftime standing ovation....Jacobs' interpretation was notable for both freedom and coherence....a dazzling display of technique and daring, creating something close to rock concert frenzy in the otherwise mature audience....Jacobs met the [Virgil] fox challenge and then some." (Herald Tribune, Sarasota FL)
"A one-man booster squad for the 'king of instruments'.
(Grand Rapids Press MI)
"King of the king of instruments...America's best-known organist." (Examiner, Washington DC)
"Jacobs is likely the most exciting performer on the organ in the United States." (Herald Tribune, Sarasota FL)
"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)
"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)
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