This holiday season, spend your lunch hour in our historic 800-seat Adler Hall!
Beginning Thursday, December 2 until Wednesday, December 29, each weekday* we’re opening our doors and inviting everyone to bring a friend, bring your lunch, and relax while surrounded by beautiful lights and renowned acoustics, with music provided by featured musicians Nelson Ojeda Valdés, Nancy Parish, Mark Victor Smith, and Ryan Kennedy.
Free and open to the public! Proof of COVID-19 vaccination and photo ID are required. *No performances Dec. 17, 23, and 24.
About Our Performers
Ryan Kennedy has become known for his adventurous programming and his transcriptions of orchestral and piano music. Recent performances include Messiaen’s Livre du Saint Sacrement, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Strauss’ Alpine Symphony, and several of Mahler’s symphonies. In addition, his recent advocacy of the organ music of Milton Babbitt and Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji has led to a number of controversial performances both here and in the UK. His recordings have been broadcast on WQXR, BBC Radio 3, and Sveriges Radio. Ryan earned his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, and is currently a doctoral candidate at Yale School of Music. He is the Director of Music at Sacred Heart Latin Mass Parish in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where among other things he improvises the daily Low Mass.
Hear Ryan on December 28 and 29.
Nancy Parish has been playing the organ since long before the millennium! She hails from South Dakota and began her first job as organist on the Coast Guard base of Governors Island in New York harbor. She is currently organist at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in Riverdale/Bronx. Nancy teaches classroom music and private piano, directs a church choir, has music directed for musical theater, and sings in a small vocal jazz group, Uncommon Chord. She is delighted to be a part of this program!
Dec. 7 – A Jazzy Take on Christmas
Dec. 14 – Musical Christmas Around the World
Dec. 21 – Selections from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker
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Mark Victor Smith is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he studied organ with Dennis Schmidt. He continued his organ study with Ed Mondello at the University of Chicago Rockefeller Chapel. He performed organ recitals, and played at conventions and special events in Chicago, Sarasota, and Albany, while also serving as organist for various churches. On stage, he has performed roles in regional musical theatre venues, performed in opera productions including with the American Chamber Opera Company, and has sung in concert as a professional chorister and soloist. Mark Victor has also taught students piano, organ, and voice, been the music director for musicals, and has been the accompanist for choral groups. His favorite projects are producing A Potpourri of SongK and other concerts, on which he accompanies the singers and performs solo works on organ and piano. He recently took the position as Organist at Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Floral Park. Mark Victor is a member of the New York Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
Prelude and Fugue in b-minor – J. S. Bach
Pastorale – César Franck
Three Chorale Preludes on “Nun komm der heiden Heiland” – J. S. Bach
December 2
Chorale Prelude: “Wachet Auf” – J. S. Bach
Preludes for Organ [3 selections] – Ernest Bloch
December 9
Chorale Prelude: “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” – Johannes Brahms
Rhapsody on “Helmsley” – Lloyd Webber
December 15/16
Fantasy on “Veni Emmanuel” – Robert C. Lau
Meditation on “Conditor alme siderum” – Alec Rowley
December 23
Ave Maria / Ave Maris Stella – Jean Langlais
Chorale Preludes: “Silent Night” (from Die Natali op. 37) – Samuel Barber
Sonata Op. 49, no. 2 – Felix Mendelssohn
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Nelson Ojeda Valdés has been the organist at South Bay Christian Church (Redondo Beach, CA), St. Paul’s United Methodist Church (Redondo Beach, CA), St. Lydia’s Episcopal Church (Brooklyn, NY), Church of St. Edward the Martyr (New York, NY), and currently, Church of the Advent (Westbury, NY). Mr. Ojeda has been a special guest organist at St. George’s Episcopal Church (Newburgh, NY) and Union Theological Seminary (New York, NY) playing the Holtkamp Organ in James Chapel. Nelson Ojeda Valdés is also active as a pianist and piano teacher. His 2021-22 season includes participation in a complete performance of Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux playing “Le merle bleu” (Book One, No. 3) presented by Piano Spheres (Los Angeles, CA), a program of Lily Boulanger, Cecile Chaminade, Charles-Marie Widor, and Cesar Franck with flutist Darwin Cosme Sánchez at the Steinway Society of Puerto Rico (San Juan), a performance of Paul Jared Newman’s “Por la noche me llaman” at Ballet Hispanico (New York, NY) at a memorial concert for the composer, the premiere of Janet Emmons’s “Requiem for Gaia’s Children” at the New York Society for Ethical Culture (NYSEC), participation in Dr. Lisa Yui’s “Lives of the Piano” at Manhattan School of Music (New York, NY) playing selections from Maurice Ravel’s Miroirs, performances of “Women of Romanticism” featuring the music of Clara Wieck Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Josephine Lang, and Ethel Smyth with soprano Stefanie Izzo, pianist Christopher Bradshaw, and cellist Kate Dillingham at Pregones (Bronx, NY), Redeemer Concert Series (Astoria, NY), St. Boniface (Brooklyn, NY) and NYSEC, and Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto on tour with the Puerto Rico Summer Festival Orchestra. For more information please visit nelsonojeda.com.
Set List:
J.S. Bach: Prelude in C Major BWV 553
J.S. Bach: Fugue in C Major BWV 953
J.S. Bach: “Sleepers Awake, A Voice is Calling” from Cantata No. 140
W.A. Mozart: Ave Verum Corpus arr. R. Hebble
J. Brahms: “How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place” arr. C. Harmon
F. B. Price: Adoration
F. Jagoda: “Ocho Kandelikas” (Ladino Hanukkah Song) arr. N. Ojeda Valdés
Christmas Spiritual: “Go, Tell It on the Mountain” arr. E.W. Hancock
Kwanzaa Medley: We Shall Overcome/Siyahamba arr. N. Ojeda Valdés
E. Batiste: Offertory No. 4 (St. Cecilia)
