Paul Jacobs

The only organist ever to have won a Grammy Award, Paul Jacobs combines a probing intellect and extraordinary technical skills with an unusually large repertoire, both old and new. No other organist alive today is repeatedly invited as soloist to perform with the country’s preeminent orchestras, making Jacobs a pioneer in the movement for the revival of symphonic music featuring the organ. Critical praise for Mr. Jacobs is nothing less than astonishing. “Paul Jacobs is one of the great living virtuosos,” praised Anne Midgette in the The Washington Post, The New Yorker’s Alex Ross has named him “one of the major musicians of our time,” and in an article in The Economist Mr. Jacobs was termed “America’s leading organ performer.” Jacobs made musical history at age 23 when he played Bach’s complete organ works in an 18-hour marathon performance on the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death. Jacobs has premiered works by Samuel Adler, Mason Bates, Michael Daugherty, Wayne Oquin, Stephen Paulus, Christopher Theofanidis, and Christopher Rouse, among others. Jacobs studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, double-majoring with John Weaver for organ and Lionel Party for harpsichord, and at Yale University with Thomas Murray. He joined the faculty of The Juilliard School in 2003 and was named chairman of the organ department in 2004, one of the youngest faculty appointees in the school’s history. He received Juilliard’s prestigious William Schuman Scholar’s Chair in 2007.