Organ Recital Series

IMPROVISATION ON A SUBMITTED THEME

BRUCE NESWICK is the Artist-in-Residence at St. James by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, La Jolla, California. Prior to coming to California, he served as Canon for Music at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and as one of the assisting musicians at Congregation Beth Israel, Portland, Oregon. Before coming to Portland, he was Associate Professor of Music in Organ and Sacred Music at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and Assistant Organist of St. Francis in the Fields Episcopal Church, Louisville, Kentucky. Before moving to Indiana, he was the Director of Music at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, where he conducted the Cathedral Choir of Girls, Boys and Adults and had oversight of the musical life of that historic Cathedral. While in NYC, he also served as one of the assisting musicians at Temple Emanu-El, Fifth Avenue. Prior to working in NYC, he lived in Atlanta, where he was Canon for Music at the Cathedral of St. Philip, and the accompanist at Temple Sinai. In the earlier half of his career, he served as the Organist-Choirmaster of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buffalo, Holy Trinity Church, Geneva, Switzerland, and of Christ Church Cathedral, Lexington, Kentucky. He was also the founding director of the Washington Cathedral Girl Choristers and director of music at St. Alban’s School for Boys and National Cathedral School for Girls.

Active in the field of church music, Mr. Neswick holds the Fellowship degree from the Royal School of Church Music, for whom he has conducted several courses for boy and girl choristers. He has served on the faculties of and performed for several church music conferences, including Master Schola, the Mississippi Conference, the Association of Anglican Musicians, Westminster Choir College Summer Session, the Montreat andWestminster Conferences of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, the Disciples of Christ Musicians, the Conference of Lutheran Church Musicians, the Sewanee Church Music Conference, Organ Alive!, the Shenandoah Conservatory Church Music Institute and the Evergreen Conference. In recent years, he has performed at St. Florian Abbey, in Austria, as part of the annual BrucknerFest; at the Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative conference; and, most recently, at Yale, as part of the 50th  Mr. Neswick has been commissioned to compose for dozens of performers and churches throughout the United States, and his organ and choral music is published by Paraclete, Augsburg-Fortress, Selah, Vivace, Hope, Plymouth, Morning Star and St. James’ presses. Mr. Neswick’s skill at improvisation garnered him three first prizes from the 1989 San Anselmo Organ Festival; the 1990 American Guild of Organists’ national convention in Boston; and the 1992 Rochette Concours at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva, Switzerland.     A graduate of Pacific Lutheran University and of the Yale School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music, Mr. Neswick’s teachers have included Robert Baker, David Dahl, Gerre Hancock, Margaret Irwin-Brandon and Lionel Rogg. A Fellow of the American Guild of Organists, Mr. Neswick has served the Guild in many capacities, including chapter dean, regional convention chair, regional education coordinator, member of the national nominating committee and member of the national improvisation competition committee. Mr. Neswick was recently awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

As a recitalist, Mr. Neswick has performed extensively throughout the United States and Europe and has been a frequent performer at national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists. In 1994, he played the opening convocation for the national AGO convention held in Dallas, Texas, and he was a featured artist at the national AGO conventions in Seattle (in 2000), Washington, DC (in 2010) and Boston (in 2014). Mr. Neswick is represented by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists.

A festive reception will follow the program.

Parking is available in the parish lot at 2315 Ellsworth.

Tax-deductible contributions, at the following levels, are most welcome to help support the series.  Thank you for your support. 

There will not be an organ recital on Palm Sunday, April 13.

The next organ recital will be offered on Sunday, May 11 by Jared Johnson, Director of Music at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.