GRAMMY Award-winning American organist Paul Jacobs will return as soloist to the Las Vegas Philharmonic to perform three works–Chausson’s Viviane, a new version of Michael Daugherty’s Once Upon a Castle, and Saint-Saëns’s monumental Symphony No. 3 under the baton of Maestro Donato Cabrera on Saturday evening May 11, 2024, at 7:30 p.m. PDT at The Smith Center for Performing Arts (361 Symphony Park Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89106).
Mr. Jacobs is the only organist ever to win a GRAMMY Award – in 2011 with a recording of Messiaen’s towering Livre du Saint Sacrement. In 2017, his recording of Once Upon a Castle with the Nashville Symphony conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero received three Grammy Awards including the Best Classical Compendium.
A fierce advocate of American new music, Mr. Jacobs has premiered contemporary organ works by Samuel Adler, Mason Bates, Michael Daugherty, Bernd Richard Deutsch, John Harbison, Lowell Liebermann, Wayne Oquin, Stephen Paulus, Christopher Rouse, and Christopher Theofanidis, among others.
As a teacher he has also been a vocal proponent of the redeeming nature of traditional and contemporary classical music. Mr. Jacobs just celebrated his 30th anniversary of his teaching career in 2023. Many of Mr. Jacobs’s students are established musicians and have joined Mr. Jacobs in broadening the pipe organ repertoire.
Here is a brief list of 10 works written for, or premiered by Mr. Jacobs in recent years:
Michael Daugherty
Once Upon a Castle (2003) for organ and orchestra
World premiere and recorded: Paul Jacobs
Samuel Adler
Partita (2007) For Organ Solo
Commission & premiere: Paul Jacobs
Christopher Theofanidis
Rex Tremendae Majestatis (2008) for solo organ, orchestral brass, and percussion
Commissioned by the Pacific Symphony for Paul Jacobs, premiered by Paul Jacobs
Mason Bates
Mass Transmission (2012) for SATB chorus, organ, & electronics
Premiere: Paul Jacobs
Stephen Paulus
Organ Concerto No. 4 (2013) for organ and full orchestra
World premiere: Paul Jacobs
Bernd Richard Deutsch
Okeanos (2014-15) Concerto for organ and orchestra
US premiere: Paul Jacobs
Christopher Rouse
Organ Concerto (2014) for organ and orchestra
World premiere: Paul Jacobs, organ / Philadelphia Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin in 2016
Wayne Oquin
Resilience (2017) for organ and orchestra
World premiere: Paul Jacobs
John Harbison
What Do We Make of Bach? (2018) for organ and orchestra
World premiere: Paul Jacobs
Lowell Liebermann
Organ Concerto (World premiere: September, 2023)
World Premiere: Paul Jacobs, organ / Jacksonville Symphony