August 20th – Sarah Johnson (New Haven, CT)
Organ Concert August 20th Features Sarah Johnson (New Haven, CT)
August 13 – Katherine Johnson (New Haven, CT)
Organ Concert August 13th Features Katherine Johnson (New Haven, CT)
August 6 – Bridgette Wargovich (Portland, ME)
Organ Concert August 6th Features Bridgette Wargovich (Portland, ME)
July 30 – Ray Cornils (West Bath, ME)
Organ Concert July 30th Features Ray Cornils (West Bath, ME)
2025 Fall International Concert: James Kennerley
October 7, 7:30 PM
2025 marks the 165th anniversary of Maine’s largest 19th-Century tracker-action pipe organ, E. & G. G. Hook’s magnificent Opus 288 at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in Bangor. The St. John’s Organ Society, is pleased to announce that James Kennerley, a Boston-based English organist and composer, will play a concert on the historic organ at St. John’s on Tuesday, October 7, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. He will play selections composed by Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn, and an original improvisation on submitted themes. St. John’s Catholic Church is located at 207 York Street in Bangor. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated.
Hailed by Bloomberg News as “a great organist” of “phenomenal technique and sheer musicality,” James Kennerley is a conductor, organist, vocalist, and composer known for his virtuosic and imaginative performances. He has appeared at major venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Washington National Cathedral, Saint Paul’s Cathedral (London), and Westminster Abbey, and his popular YouTube performances have attracted millions of views worldwide. His playing is distinguished by thrilling virtuosity, inventive improvisation, and musical sensitivity.
Appointed Municipal Organist of Portland, Maine, in 2017, Mr. Kennerley continues a distinguished tradition of civic organists dating back to 1912. In this role, he presents concerts on the Kotzschmar Organ and serves as Artistic Director of the Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ, one of the nation’s leading organizations devoted to the promotion of the organ and its music. He is also Artistic Director of Saint Mary Schola, Maine’s professional early music ensemble, and Minister of Music at Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church in Falmouth.
Mr. Kennerley maintains an active international career as both performer and conductor, with recent appearances at Alice Tully Hall, the Metropolitan Museum’s MetLiveArts series, and the Lincoln Center White Light Festival. He has toured widely across the United States and Europe, collaborated with renowned early music ensembles, and conducted major choral-orchestral works in concert and recording. A prize-winning composer and specialist in improvisation, he brings a unique blend of historical expertise and creative innovation to his versatile concert programming.For more information, visit https://hookopus288.org/.
Kevin Birch and Anatole Wieck (Bangor, ME)
Organ Concert August 28 Features Kevin Birch, organ, and Anatole Wieck, violin
The August 28 concert features Kevin Birch, organ, and Anatole Weick, violin, from Bangor, ME. Birch and Wieck are performing music of Pablo Bruna, Georg Muffatt, and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck.
Anatole Wieck
ANATOLE WIECK - VIOLIN, VIOLA d’AMORE
Born in Latvia, Anatole Wieck received his first musical education in Riga and Moscow. In the United States since 1973, he studied violin and viola at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, where he completed his Doctorate in Musical Arts working closely with Ivan Galamian, Lillian Fuchs, and Paul Doktor. He also studied baroque interpretation with Carol Lieberman at Boston University. He plays baroque viola, viola d’amore and baroque violin.
Since 1986 Dr. Wieck has taught upper strings at the University of Maine and conducted the University of Maine Orchestra. He has performed and conducted in Europe, North and South America, and has participated in chamber music festivals such as Chamber Music/West (San Francisco), White Nights (St. Petersburg, Russia) and festivals in Montepulciano, Italy and Newport, Rhode Island. He was a Fulbright Senior Specialist in 2006 in Guatemala.
Kevin Birch
KEVIN BIRCH - ORGAN
Kevin Birch began organ studies with Yuko Hayashi on the C. B. Fisk organ at Old West Church in 1979 and earned the Bachelor of Music Degree at New England Conservatory (with Distinction in Performance) in 1987. He continued studies with Klaas Bolt at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam and later with Delores Bruch at the University of Iowa where he earned the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees. Since 1992 he has served as Director of Music at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor, Maine where he also serves as Executive Director of St. John’s Organ Society - a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and stewardship of E. & G. G. Hook’s Opus 288, built for St. John’s Church in 1860. He has performed solo recitals in the US, Canada, Europe, and in South America, and for several national conventions of the Organ Historical Society. He is especially devoted to the many fine historic organs in Maine on which he enjoys frequent opportunities to study and perform. Kevin is also devoted to the art of the clavichord - an instrument long associated with the organ, especially in Germany and Scandinavia - and is a member of the Dutch Clavichord Society, the German Clavichord Society and the Boston Clavichord Society. Recent projects include solo clavichord recitals for the German Clavichord Society in Cologne, Germany, the Boston Clavichord Society, lecture recitals on “The Clavichord and the Organ - Companions for Centuries” at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, and at Oberlin Conservatory in Oberlin, OH.
St. John’s Organ Society is pleased to host the 32nd Summer Recital Series on Maine’s largest 19th-Century mechanical-action pipe organ, E. & G. G. Hook’s magnificent Opus 288, at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in Bangor. These hour-long recitals occur on Thursday evenings at 7:30. St. John’s Catholic Church is located at 207 York Street in Bangor. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated.
Jennifer Velázquez (Marlborough, MA)
Organ Concert August 21 Features Jennifer Velázquez (Marlborough, MA)
The August 21 concert features Jennifer Velázquez from Marlborough, MA. Velázquez is performing music of Felix Mendelssohn, César Franck, and Eugène Gigout.
Jennifer Velázquez served as Associate Director of Music and Worship and Organist atIndependent Presbyterian Church (IPC) in Memphis, TN for 25 years. After moving to the Boston area in 2021, she has been active as a recitalist and substitute organist/director. She also serves on the Boston AGO Executive Committee. Recent local performances include recitals at King’s Chapel, Trinity Church, and Old West Church in Boston. During her tenure with IPC’s robust music program, Jennifer accompanied numerous masterworks and collaborated with musicians such as Alice Parker, Dan Forrest, and the Westminster Brass. She also played organ and celeste with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Mei-Ann Chen and Robert Moody and has performed internationally in England, Scotland, and Ukraine. She may be heard on A Christmas Legacy and This Light So Fair, two albums published by Ligonier Ministries. In 2008, Jennifer released a solo album, Lauda Anima, with collaborative trumpeter David Spencer. Jennifer holds a Master of Music in organ performance from the Eastman School of Music as well as a Bachelor of Music from Houghton College. She spent time in London studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her teachers and mentors include Susan Klotzbach, Graham Elliott, Russell Saunders, Michael Farris, and Peter Sykes.
St. John’s Organ Society is pleased to host the 32nd Summer Recital Series on Maine’s largest 19th-Century mechanical-action pipe organ, E. & G. G. Hook’s magnificent Opus 288, at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in Bangor. These hour-long recitals occur on Thursday evenings at 7:30. St. John’s Catholic Church is located at 207 York Street in Bangor. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated.
Edith Yam (Rochester, NY)
August 14 Organ Concert Features Edith Yam (Rochester, NY)
The August 14 concert features Edith Yam from Rochester, NY. Yam is performing music of August Gottfried Ritter, Dudley Buck, and Franz Liszt.
Dr. Edith Yam recently completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ at the Eastman School of Music (Rochester, NY), where her primary teacher was Prof. David Higgs. She served as his teaching assistant, and taught secondary organ at Eastman. Edith has presented her DMA lecture-recital research on nineteenth-century organ performance practice at the University of Michigan’s 63rd Annual Organ Conference.
Edith also holds degrees from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where she completed her Bachelor of Music (with First Class Honours) and Masters of Music respectively. In addition, she studied as an exchange student at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen, Germany. Her former teachers include Philip Swanton, Pieter van Dijk, and Klaus Eichhorn.
Edith has performed at various venues around the world, including Sydney Town Hall, Bremen Cathedral, Grote Sint Laurenskerk in Alkmaar, Orgelpark in Amsterdam, the Methuen Memorial Music Hall (MA), and St. Luke’s in Evanston (IL).
St. John’s Organ Society is pleased to host the 32nd Summer Recital Series on Maine’s largest 19th-Century mechanical-action pipe organ, E. & G. G. Hook’s magnificent Opus 288, at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in Bangor. These hour-long recitals occur on Thursday evenings at 7:30. St. John’s Catholic Church is located at 207 York Street in Bangor. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated.
Leo Abbott (Boston, MA)
August 7 Organ Concert Features Leo Abbott (Boston, MA)
The August 7 concert features Leo Abbott from Boston, MA. Abbott is performing music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Camille Saint-Saëns, and George E. Whiting.
Leo Abbott is a graduate of the St. Paul Choir School, Cambridge, and the Chaloff School of Music, Boston. His teachers include Theodore Marier, George Faxon, Clarence Watters and Flor Peeters, in organ; Naji Hakim in improvisation, and Julius Chaloff in piano. He holds the Fellowship and ChoirMaster Certificates of the American Guild of Organists, has one First Prize in several national and international competitions, and was a finalist at the "Grand Prix de Chartres" in 1984. After nearly 33 years, he retired from the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, and was named Music Director and Organist Emeritus. Mr. Abbott has performed for conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Organ Historical Society, and in France, Belgium, Great Britain, Ireland, and across the United States.
St. John’s Organ Society is pleased to host the 32nd Summer Recital Series on Maine’s largest 19th-Century mechanical-action pipe organ, E. & G. G. Hook’s magnificent Opus 288, at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in Bangor. These hour-long recitals occur on Thursday evenings at 7:30. St. John’s Catholic Church is located at 207 York Street in Bangor. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated.