Internationally acclaimed organist Peggy Haas Howell will present a solo organ recital Friday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 42 E. Main St.
Howell, an internationally respected recitalist, has performed throughout the United States and Europe and is known for her musicianship and technical skill at the organ.
She serves as organist and choirmaster at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lynchburg and as national vice president and councilor for competitions and new music for the American Guild of Organists. She is also director of Cantate Children’s and Youth Choir, a community ensemble dedicated to bringing classical choral music to young singers in central Virginia.
Howell holds a bachelor’s degree in church music from Susquehanna University and a master of sacred music degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She also pursued advanced study at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Hamburg, Germany. Her teachers have included James Boeringer, Heinz Wunderlich, Charles Dodsley Walker, Cherry Rhodes and Harald Vogel.
Her career as a recording artist, recitalist, teacher and church musician was praised by The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, which described her as a “play anything virtuoso.”
The recital program will span several centuries of organ repertoire, featuring works by Georg Böhm, Johann Sebastian Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and contemporary composer Dan Locklair, as well as anonymous Renaissance dances from the 1599 Suzanne van Soldt manuscript. Highlights include Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor (BWV 542) and Locklair’s Salem Sonata.
The concert is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow. More information is available at salemstpauls.org.
-The Salem Times-Register
