"One of the world's great organists"
(LA Daily News, Los Angeles)
"Radiant playing...staggering talents."(Newsday, NY)
"JACOBS' PASSION EVIDENT IN PERFORMANCE: Playing his program from memory, the internationally renowned organist...delivered extremely technical passages and colorful pieces with a winning combination of technical fire, showmanship and musical sense. Everything he did, from lightning-fast passages to dynamic extremes, served the music, and served it well....Jacobs plumbed remarkable musical depths...His comments were a charming mix of knowledge gained by years of total immersion in the music, an obvious passion for the instrument and its literature and an equally obvious delight in sharing the music and its history with people."
(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
"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)
"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)
"A splendidly played musical event."
(San Francisco Chronicle)
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