These hour-long recitals occur on Thursday evenings at 7:30. St. John’s Catholic Church is located at 207 York Street in Bangor. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated.

St. John’s Organ Society Summer Series 2017 presents a special pre-season opportunity…
July 20
Choeur d’Enfants d’Ile-de-France (choral concert with organ)  (Levallois, France)
Music Director & Conductor: Prof. Francis Bardot
Guest organist:  Mike Logtenberg (Luxembourg)

This is the 25^th tour of Prof. Francis Bardot to the U.S.A. with the Choeur d’Enfants d’Ile de France, a children’s choir of boys and girls from Levallois, France. St. John’s Catholic Church is pleased to host this choir’s concert on Thursday, July 20, at 7:30 pm. The choir will perform choral music of French and German composers including: Berlioz, Faure, Franck, Poulenc, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Schumann. Prof. Bardot has made numerous well-received recordings with his choirs.

August 3
Permelia Sears
(Dunstable, Massachusetts)

The August 3 program features Permelia Sears of Dunstable, Massachusetts performing music of Johann Pachelbel, Dieterich Buxtehude, John Knowles Paine, and Dudley Buck.

Sears is a graduate of Smith College and the Yale University School of Music with a Master of Music in Pipe Organ Performance. She was Co-Chairman of the Extant Organs Committee of the Organ Historical Society for many years and specializes in playing historical 19^thcentury American tracker organs. She has performed on instruments across the Northeast, played on several Organ Historical Society Conventions, as well as in concerts with her husband and daughter. She is currently Director of Music at the First Congregational Church of Monson, MA, home of an 1892 three-manual Johnson and Son organ.

August 10
Abraham Ross
(Holden, Maine)

The August 10 program features Abraham Ross of Holden, Maine performing music of Cėsar Franck, Horatio Parker, Charles-Marie Widor, and George Whitefield Chadwick.

Abe performs regularly as a soloist and an ensemble player with special interests in early music and twentieth-century repertoire. He is currently completing the Masters of Music in Historical Performance at Oberlin Conservatory, where he studies organ with Jonathan Moyer and harpsichord with Mark Edwards. He also serves as Music Intern at Church of the Covenant in Cleveland, where he assists with rehearsals, accompanies services, and engages the community with musical offerings of varying genres.

Abe commenced his study of organ with Kevin Birch at St John’s Roman Catholic Church in Bangor, Maine, playing the church’s 1860 E. & G. G. Hook organ. During this time, he developed an appreciation and a passion for historical instruments and early music. He went on to attain the position of Organ Scholar for the Class of 2016 at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. During this time, he studied under James David Christie, conducted research in early and twentieth-century keyboard repertory, and performed throughout the Northeast.

Abe has been fortunate to encounter abundant opportunities for musical study and performance. In 2014, he was awarded a Mellon Grant to study seventeenth-century music with Francesco Cera in Rieti, Italy. A summer of study and research culminated in a presentation of Frescobaldi’s Messa della Madonna and the corresponding plainchant within a liturgy at Holy Cross. He went on to win first place in the Boston Chapter of the American Guild of Organists’ Quimby Competition in 2015. Abe’s recent performance highlights include appearances at Universidad del Salvador (Buenos Aires, Argentina), First Church of Christ Scientist (Concord, NH), and Mechanics Hall (Worcester, MA). This summer Abe returned to his home state, playing as a solo recitalist, as well as with a period instrument ensemble of Boston-area musicians at Blue Hill Bach’s annual festival in mid-coast Maine.

August 17
George Bozeman
(Deerfield, New Hampshire)

The August 17 program features George Bozemanof Deerfield, New Hampshire presenting a music program titled “Pictures at an Exhibition as found in the chorale preludes of Johann Sebastian Bach” demonstrating how Bach painted pictures suggested by the words of the chorales.

George Bozeman, a native of Texas, studied organ at the University of North Texas, and apprenticed as an organbuilder with Otto Hofmann of Austin, Texas. On a Fulbright grant he studied organ with Anton Heiller and harpsichord with Isolde Ahlgrimm at the Academy of Music in Vienna. After work with organbuilder Fritz Noack he founded his own firm in Lowell, Massachusetts, later moving to Deerfield, New Hampshire. He has continued as an active church musician and is director of music at the Pembroke Congregational Church. He has played recitals across the United States and in Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe.

August 24
Kevin Birch
(Bangor, Maine)

The August 24 program features Kevin Birch of Bangor, Maine performing music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Böhm, and James Woodman.

Kevin Birch holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Iowa with previous studies at New England Conservatory in Boston and the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. Since 1992 he has served as Director of Music at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor, Maine where he also serves as Executive Director of St. John’s Organ Society.  He is a member of the music faculty at the University of Maine’s School of the Performing Arts in Orono and serves on the Liturgical Commission for the Diocese of Portland. He has performed solo recitals in the US, Canada, Europe, South America and for several national conventions of the Organ Historical Society.

August 31
Margaret Harper
(Portsmouth, New Hampshire)

The August 31 program features Margaret Harper of Portsmouth, New Hampshire performing music of Johann Sebastian Bach, César Franck, Nathan Stang, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Maurice Duruflé.

Organist Margaret Harper has performed across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Croatian newspaper Glas Slavonije writes, “The freezing cold of a January evening dominated the cathedral in Djakovo, but it could not diminish the richness and warmth of sound brought out of the cathedral organ by Margaret Harper.” Margaret is the Director of Music and Liturgy at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Portsmouth, NH, as well as the Director of the Choir School at St. John’s. This Fall, she joins the faculty of the University of Southern Maine School of Music as Artist Faculty in Organ and Harpsichord.  She is also on the faculty and the board of the Young Organist Collaborative and is Artistic Director of the chamber music series Concerts on the Hill. She has presented academic papers at national and regional conferences of the American Bach Society and the American Guild of Organists, and in 2016 was the keynote speaker at the Around the Mountain Organ and Choral Festival. Margaret holds a DMA and a Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. Her primary teachers include William Porter, David Higgs, Michel Bouvard, Edoardo Bellotti, and Edward Zimmerman. She was a stipendiate at the 2012 Arp Schnitger International Organ Competition. In the same year, she was the inaugural recipient of the James B. Cochran Prize, which is awarded annually for the best organ degree recital at the Eastman School of Music. In 2014, she was a semifinalist in the National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance.

We are grateful to our partner hotel, the Charles Inn.