2025 Festival | June 8–15, 2025
Organ Mini-Festival
Thursday, June 12 | First Lutheran Church, Boston
Join us at the First Lutheran Church, home to the magnificent Richards, Fowkes & Co. Opus 10 organ, and enjoy three programs from leading virtuosos.
9AM | Kola Owolabi, organ
The Voice of the Organ: Manifestations of Power and Love
Professor of Organ at the University of Notre Dame, Kola Owolabi has performed throughout the United States and Europe and has released three solo recordings. He makes his BEMF début in a program celebrating both the power of music, and the pipe organ as the voice of that power: from Lutheran hymns that refer both to God’s power and his love, to themes of unrequited love in Peter Philips’s Le rossignuol, his setting of a Lassus chanson, to the tremendous power a composer like Handel held over those who performed under his direction.
11:30AM | Jonathan Moyer, organ
The Abuse of Power and the Renewal of Love
PLEASE NOTE: Due to circumstances beyond our control, we regret to announce that Catalina Vicens will not be performing in BEMF’s 2025 Organ Mini-Festival. In her place we are pleased to announce the BEMF début of organist Jonathan Moyer.
Jonathan Moyer is the David S. Boe chair and associate professor of organ at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and is organist of the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland, OH. He performs a vast repertoire spanning from the renaissance to the modern era, and has concertized throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, and Hong Kong. His program presents four musical dualities that are manifestations of the abuse of power and the restorative nature of love: War and Peace, Greed and Humility, Darkness and Light, and Transgression and Pardon. Enjoy selections by J. S. Bach, Vincent Lübeck, Juan Cabanilles, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Manuel Rodrigues Coelho, and Girolamo Frescobaldi, and a set of Moyer's own variations on a theme by Thomas Tallis.
2PM | Erica Johnson organ
Reflection and Transformation: Struggles in Power and Love
College Organist for Wellesley College, Erica Johnson has enjoyed a distinguished career as a church musician, performer, and instructor of the organ. For her BEMF début, she explores a programmatic reflection of power and love for the organ. From a biblical reordering of power, to the reform of corruption, and the scorn of love, the keyboard repertoire of the 16th to 18th centuries mirrors the struggles of a hierarchical society. The expressive power of this music is reflected not only in the subject matter but also in the rich tapestry of keyboard figuration.