A Tribute to Bach: Featuring works for solo recorder and obbligato organ/harpsichord by J.S. Bach

About Maurice Steger

It is not surprising that Maurice Steger is called “Paganini”, “wizard”, “the world’s leading recorder player” or an “electrifying and inspiring conductor.” To live up to such high expectations, one requires not only astonishing technique, but also charisma, intellect, and a special sensitivity for the music. Maurice Steger has been proving all of this to his audiences, inspiring them with his intense tone and unstoppable energy in various concert formats all over the world. As a soloist, conductor, or both at once, he regularly performs with the top period instrument ensembles, such as the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, La Cetra Baroque Orchestra Basel, Venice Baroque Orchestra, The English Concert, Il Pomo d’oro or I Barocchisti. He also performs with leading modern orchestras such as the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Canadian Violons du Roy, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Musikkollegium Winterthur, and the NDR Radiophilharmonie. It always astonishes that all these orchestras sound transformed after a period of work: sonically sensitive and individual, always historically informed, and playfully expressive in the here and now.

About Jason Moy

Jason J. Moy is Artistic Director of Ars Musica Chicago and one of the most sought-after early keyboard specialists in the Midwest. He serves as Artist-Faculty at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, and at DePaul University, where he was awarded the School of Music’s first-ever endowed chair as the Monsignor Kenneth J. Velo Distinguished Professor of Music. Jason received his Early Music training at McGill University and counts Hank Knox, Ketil Haugsand, Andrew Lawrence-King, and the late Bruce Haynes among his most influential mentors and teachers. He is a founding member of the award-winning baroque ensemble Trio Speranza, principal keyboardist of the Bach Week Festival Orchestra, and is a frequent guest soloist and continuo player with such esteemed ensembles as the Newberry Consort, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, South Bend Symphony Orchestra, and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.

About Joel Bacon

A native of N.J., Dr. Joel Bacon holds degrees in mathematics and organ performance from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he was a student of Joyce Jones, and an artist diploma in organ from the Konservatorium der Stadt Wien (Vienna, Austria), where he studied with Michael Gailit. With a dissertation on the use of organ in selected orchestral works, he earned his PhD in historical musicology through a joint degree program of Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts and the University of Vienna. Dr. Bacon is a frequent performer, teacher, and scholar in North America and Europe. He has been heard in recital in Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, Canada, and the US, and live performances have been broadcast on Austrian Radio (1) and Public Radio International. He has taught at the prestigious Oundle International Festival (Cambridge, UK), at several Pipe Organ Encounters of the American Guild of Organists, and other courses in the US and Canada. With the principal violist of the Munich Philharmonic, Albrecht Rohde, he has recorded a CD of music for viola and organ. Joel Bacon holds the Stewart and Sheron Golden Chair in Organ and Liturgical Studies, the first endowed chair in the College of Liberal Arts. Before coming to CSU, he was assistant organist of St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Munich-Grunwald, and served as frequent guest organist at the former Hapsburg imperial church, St. Augustine, Vienna.

Organ Week Schedule

• Sunday, June 9, 4 PM | Jason Moy, Solo Harpsichord Concert Organ Recital Hall, UCA
• Monday, June 10, 7:30 PM | Todd Wilson, Solo Organ Recital / FREE | Organ Concert at First Presbyterian Church
• Tuesday, June 11, 7:30 PM | Ken Cowan, Solo Organ Recital / FREE | Organ Concert at First United Methodist Church
• Wednesday, June 12, 7:30 PM | Joel Bacon, Organ, Jason Moy, Harpsichord, and Maurice Steger, Recorder Concert, Organ Recital Hall, UCA
• Thursday, June 13, 6 PM | High School Camp Concert, Organ Recital Hall, UCA, FREE