Gail Archer, a Grammy nominated international concert organist, recording artist, choral conductor and lecturer, will present the Mostly Second Sundays organ concert on May 20 at 4 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.
Her program will include music by Horatio Parker, Samuel Barber, and Parker’s pupil, Charles Ives. She will play Ives’ witty and virtuosic “Variations on ‘America’.” Archer will also play several spirituals and hymn tunes.
She is also adjudicating young organ artists for Musicfest Northwest on May 15 at the cathedral. The winner of that competition will play during Archer’s Sunday recital.
In spring 2010, she celebrated the 325th anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach with six concerts in New York City, concluding with the Art of Fugue at Central Synagogue.
Archer was the first American woman to play the complete works of Olivier Messiaen for the centennial of the composer’s birth in 2008. The New York Times declared, “Ms. Archer's well-paced interpretation had a compelling authority. She played with a bracing physicality in the work's more driven passages and endowed humbler ruminations with a sense of vulnerability and awe.”
Time-Out New York recognized the Messiaen cycle as “Best of 2008” in Classical music and opera. Archer produced “A Mystic In the Making: (MM07007), recorded on the Aeolian-Skinner organ at Columbia University during the Messiaen concerts, for which she received a Grammy nomination. She recorded works of Bach along with narration read by Robert Thurman as part of a project for the Tennessee Players and the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, Words of Albert Schweitzer and the Music of Bach. A live concert recording made at the Organalia Festival in Turin, Italy was released in 2005.
Archer is the college organist at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, and director of the music program at Barnard, where she conducts the Barnard-Columbia (University) Chorus. She is director of the artist and young organ artist recitals at Central Synagogue in New York City.
St. John’s three-manual Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ, one of the finest in the city, was installed in 1960. The organ features five divisions of 72 ranks in 86 stops including an antiphonal organ in the west gallery under the Cathedral’s Rose Window.
Tickets are $10 and available from TicketsWest and at the door on May 20. The Cathedral’s Books & Gifts shop has a number of her CDs for sale, available for $15 each.
Musicfest Northwest provides young music and dance students the opportunity to perform and have their talent adjudicated by top professional artists from across the U.S. It is the largest festival of its kind on the West Coast (approximately 1400 entries this year). Students from elementary to post-graduate level participate in ballet, brass, flute, guitar, organ, piano, reed, and string and voice divisions. The organ performances are scheduled for May 15 at the Cathedral and are open to the public. Check the Musicfest website for details on the programs.
For information, check the Cathedral website or call the (509) 838-4277.
The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist is located at 127 E. 12th Ave,. Free parking is available in the lot behind Lindaman’s Restaurant.
