MUSIC AT MIDDAY VIRTUAL CONCERT
National City Christian Church
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
James Kosnik, Organist

 

Music at Midday is proud to be presenting twice-weekly virtual concerts, today featuring organist James Kosnik in an hour-long program of music performed at Epiphany Episcopal Church in Norfolk, Virginia. This concert features the world premiere of a new work for organ by American composer Adolphus Hailstork. We are deeply grateful to the wonderful musicians who have contributed recordings of their performances to make possible these virtual concerts.

Instructions: Make sure that the volume on your computer is turned on, then click here to enjoy today’s concert performance, which begins at 3:00 into the recording.

 

PROGRAM

 

Click here to enjoy today’s concert performance, which begins at 3:00 into the recording.

Praeludium in G Major – Nikolaus Bruhns (1665-1697)

La Nativité: Les Bergers; Les Enfants de Dieu – Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
Rev. Richard Bridgford, narrator

Four Variations on the Chorale,”Rejoice Thou Greatly, O My Soul” – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

Fantasy Scherzo on Ancient of Days – Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941)
World Premiere Performance

 

Dr. James W. Kosnik is a designated “University Professor of Music” at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He joined the faculty in 1982, serving as chairman of the Music Department from 1986 until 1992. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree and the prestigious Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied organ with Professor Russell Saunders.
Dr. Kosnik has recorded six CDs, and published eleven volumes of organ repertoire, the “Laudate,” and “Jubilate,” Series for Concordia Publishing House, including some of his original compositions. Kosnik’s sixth CD, “Amazing Grace: The Organ Music of Adol- phus Hailstork,” is available through Albany Records and also available on I Tunes.

For the past 20 years, Dr. Kosnik has collaborated with Dr. Adolphus Hailstork, Eminent Scholar/Professor of Music at the Ludwig F. Diehn School of Music at Old Dominion University. In 1996, Kosnik’s recording of Dr. Hailstork’s VENI EMMANUEL (“Ancient Song: Sacred Sound” CD) was broadcast nationally on PIPEDREAMS. In 2005, Kosnik gave the world premiere performance of Dr. Hailstork’s “Three Chant Studies” at St. Pat- rick’s Cathedral, New York City; these compositions are now published by Theodore Presser and dedicated to Dr. Kosnik.

In his career as an organist, he has performed numerous concerts throughout the United States and Europe, including at the Vatican, (2009), Harvard University (2013), King’s Chapel, Boston (2014), and Regional Conventions of the American Guild of Organists and National Conventions of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians. In 2017, Dr. Kosnik was featured on the “Distinguished Alumnus Concert Series” at SUNY Buffa- lo, where he began his university undergraduate education in 1967.
His most recent choral composition, “Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee,” a collaboration with Dr. Judy Ransom, was commissioned by the Tuscaloosa Music Academy. It received its Virginia premiere on May 18, 2019 by the Virginia Children’s Chorus, under the di- rection of Carol Downing, the renowned music director of the VCC.

In 2020, Dr. Kosnik accepted a position as a contributing author for “The American Organist,” the monthly journal of The American Guild of Organists. Kosnik’s articles will be published on a quarterly schedule; they will feature aspects of performance, pedagogy, repertoire and methodology.

 

Dr. Adolphus Hailstork has written in a variety of genres, producing works for chorus, solo voice, piano, organ, various chamber ensembles, band, and orchestra. His early com- positions include Celebration, recorded by the Detroit Symphony in 1976; and two works for band (Out of the Depths, 1977, and American Guernica, 1983), both of which won national competitions. Consort Piece (1995), commissioned by the Norfolk Cham- ber Ensemble, was awarded first prize by the University of Delaware Festival of Contem- porary Music.

Dr. Hailstork’s works have been performed by such prestigious ensembles as the Philadel- phia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic, under the ba- tons of leading conductors such as James DePreist, Daniel Barenboim, Kurt Masur, and Lorin Maazel.

1999 saw the premieres of Dr. Hailstork’s Second Symphony, commissioned by the De- troit Symphony, as well as his second opera, Joshua’s Boots, commissioned by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the Kansas City Lyric Opera. Dr. Hailstork’s second and third symphonies were recently recorded by the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra, under David Lockington, on a Naxos label disc released in January 2007.

Recent commissions include Earthrise, a new large scale choral work premiered by James Conlon and the 2006 Cincinnati May Festival, Three Studies on Chant Melodies for the American Guild of Organists 2006 National Convention, and Whitman’s Journey, a can- tata for chorus and orchestra, premiered by the Master Chorale of Washington, D.C. (under Donald McCullough) at the Kennedy Center in April 2006. Rise for Freedom, an opera about the Underground Railroad, will be premiered in the fall of 2007 by the Cin- cinnati Opera Company. Other premieres slated for the spring of 2008 are Serenade for chorus and orchestra, commissioned by Michigan State University, and Set Me on a Rock, also for chorus and orchestra, commissioned by the Houston Choral Society.
Dr. Hailstork, who has received honorary doctorates from Michigan State University and the College of William and Mary, resides in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and serves as Profes- sor of Music and Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.

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