Concert Series

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.