Artists, Schedule for 30th Summer Recital Series at St. John Church in Bangor Announced

BANGOR---The 30th Summer Recital Series on Maine’s largest 19th-Century mechanical-action pipe organ, E. & G. G. Hook’s magnificent Opus 288, at St. John Church on 207 York Street in Bangor, will begin on July 27 and the complete schedule has now been announced.

The series features internationally known organists as well as local performers. The recitals are an hour long and are held on Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free, but donations to maintain the organ are appreciated. The concerts are sponsored by St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Bangor and the St. John’s Organ Society. The organ society is committed to the preservation and appreciation of the Opus 288, which was built in 1860 and remains one of the most beautiful, surviving organs of its time. Here is the schedule:

July 27
Joshua Ehlebracht
Joshua Ehlebracht, a 24-year-old pursuing a master’s degree in organ from the Yale School of Music, will perform the music of J. Nicolaus Bruhns, John Knowles Paine, and Horatio Parket. Joshua is currently serving as interim organist at St. Paul’s on the Green in Norwalk, Connecticut, and has previously worked in Lutheran and Presbyterian churches since the age of 15. Joshua is from Kitchener, Ontario, and holds second-place prizes from the Albert Schweitzer organ festival in 2017 and the Royal Canadian College of Organists competition in 2016.

August 3
Rosalind Mohnsen
Rosalind Mohnsen will perform the music of Dudley Buck, Horatio Parker, and Florence Price. A native of Nebraska, Rosalind is the director of music and organist at Immaculate Conception Church in Malden, Massachusetts, where she has completed thirty-three years of service. As a concert organist, Rosalind has performed in such venues as Methuen Memorial Music Hall, City Hall in Portland, Yale University’s Woolsey Hall, the National Shrine in Washington, D.C. and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston. She has been a frequent performer for Boston’s First Night

August 10
Paul Griffin (organ) and Sophia Anastasi Griffin (soprano)
Paul Griffin (organ) and Sophia Anastasi Griffin (soprano) will perform the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Louis Vierne, and Giacomo Puccini. As a child, Paul was fascinated by the pipe organ at his church, St. Mary of the Visitation in Houlton, and learned how to read music while examining his older brother’s piano music and his grandmother’s edition of Bach’s “Two-Part Inventions.” His overarching love for sacred music in general, and Bach in particular, eventually brought him to the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art in Washington, D.C. The school not only gave him ample opportunity to perform the sacred music he loves, but it also awarded him a full scholarship and graduate assistantship. He met an undergraduate soprano, Sophia Anastasi, who earned her bachelor’s degree in vocal performance in 2020. They married and now live in Maryland. Paul is a general music teacher and director of choirs at St. Peter’s School on Capitol Hill.

August 17
Abraham Ross
Abraham Ross will perform the music of Charles Ives, J. K. Paine, and G. E. Whiting featuring the First Sonata for Organ by Florence Price. A Bangor native, his formative organ studies took place on the Opus 288 at St. John Church, an experience that inspired him to take up the instrument as a career. Abraham enjoys an active career as a concert organist, harpsichordist, and director, presenting imaginative programs informed by the most recent research into performance practice, technology, and musicological context. He has appeared with various groups across North America, in Argentina, and in Europe.

August 24
Mary-Katherine Fletcher
Mary-Katherine Fletcher will perform the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Felix Mendelssohn, and César Franck. She is the director of music and organist at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet, Massachusetts, and serves as treasurer for the Southeastern Massachusetts chapter of the American Guild of Organists. A recent graduate, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Bridgewater State University. She will be pursuing a master’s degree in sacred music from Boston University, where she was awarded a Dean’s Fellowship.

August 31
Kevin Birch
Kevin Birch will perform the music of Louis Marchand, Johann Sebastian Bach, and César Franck. Since 1992, he has served as director of music at St. John Church in Bangor and executive director of the St. John’s Organ Society. Birch is a member of the music faculty at the University of Maine’s School of the Performing Arts in Orono and has performed solo recitals in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South America, and for several national conventions of the Organ Historical Society. 

For more information on the series, contact St. Paul the Apostle Parish at (207) 217-6740 or visit www.hookopus288.net.