YOUNG ARTISTS SHOWCASE SERIES at First Unitarian, 90 Main St
Worcester (Will Sherwood, Dir of Music)
Each year First Unitarian features top-tier musicians both
to offer them performance experience/exposure, and to introduce our community
to fresh and exciting new top talent that’s headed onto the concert
scene. This year we feature two (classical) organists and Joy of
Music Program’s Jazz Trane jazz quartet.
Friday
April 24 7PM
Jonathan Wessler, organist (organ
performance degrees from Oberlin and Eastman)
Innovative Transcriptions
and Works by Beethoven (Leonore 3), Vaughan Williams, and Guilmant
Worcester Debut
Jonathan is an accomplished
improviser and arranger as well as standard repertoire performer.
Somewhat unusual for organists, he
has a great skill for transcribing orchestral works for the organ –
capturing the textures and timbres of the full orchestra ensemble
while “soloing-out” (emphasizing) important themes/melodies by various
individual instruments.
Orchestral transcription has been
somewhat of a lost art, although in recent years younger organists are starting
to embrace transcriptions (which prior to the modern era of technology and
frequent live concert availability, large orchestral works could only be heard
live on the pipe organ by a local organist).
Jonathan grew up in the Midwest
(Illinois) and began improvisation somewhat out of necessity for church service
playing.
He adapts his repertoire and
playing style based on the instrument at hand (so to speak) –
“You have to work with the
instrument to perform the piece the way the instrument likes it played” (the
optimal sound for that particular instrument). Most organists do
not have a wide swath of experience as orchestrators, rather just playing
existing organ repertoire note-for-note.
Jonathan is no stranger to
orchestras: both his parents were members of a symphony orchestra, and
his father was an orchestra conductor, so Jonathan had early exposure to
fine symphonic works.
For his Beethoven Leonore piece on
the program, he learned it from the orchestra full score (one staff per
instrument, yielding 20 or more staves per page, and your eyes have to “yodel”
up and down to scan all the notes to assemble in your mind the full texture of
the orchestra). For practical purposes, he has condensed his organ arrangement
to three staffs for less stressful real-time performance.
