Organist Janet Sora Chung To Perform May 10
In Recital: Janet Sora Chung, organ, presented by Performance Music at The University of Scranton, will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May 10, in the Houlihan-McLean Center. The concert is open to the public, free of charge. Chung will perform on the University’s historic 3,178-pipe Austin Opus 301 organ, which was built in 1910.Performance Music at The University of Scranton will wrap up its spring semester programming with an organ recital presented by Janet Sora Chung on Friday, May 10. The recital begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Houlihan-McLean Center, Mulberry Street and Jefferson Avenue. Admission is free of charge and open to the public. Seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis.
“Janet’s last performance here impressed us with her mastery of both traditional and non-traditional genres of organ music, both in terms of her performance and registrations” said Performance Music Conductor and Director Cheryl Y. Boga.
The New York City-based Chung is an organist, violinist, arranger and educator who serves as co-artistic director of the Christopher Street Collegium, an ensemble that brings together some of New York's finest young classical musicians to perform the sacred works of composers like Bach, Buxtehude, Couperin and others. A frequent recitalist in the United States and abroad who has won acclaim for her interpretations of Messiaen and Bach, Chung has performed at St. Mary the Virgin, St. Ignatius of Loyola Church, SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center, Winspear Centre and Riverside Church.
In addition, Chung serves as music director and organist at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, cantor-organist of the New York Finnish Lutheran Congregation and director of the contemporary ensemble at Holy Trinity Church. She also arranges pieces for solo organ and organ and saxophone duo, and along with saxophonist Jay Rattman has commissioned or premiered works by Walter Hilse, Rachel Laurin and James Chirillo, and transcribed pieces by Debussy and others. Recently, she premiered her arrangement of Bach's “Goldberg Variations” for St. John’s Lutheran Church’s “200 Years: A Sacred Space Celebration.”
Chung earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where she received the Bronson Ragan Award for outstanding ability in organ performance. In her work as a teacher, she incorporates learning theory to share her love of music and insights from her own teachers, including McNeil Robinson, Carol Ann Aicher, James Keene, Kenneth Cooper, Marnie Giesbrecht and Jacobus Kloppers.
Chung will perform on the University’s historic 114-year-old Austin Opus 301 organ, which was re-dedicated in 2006 after having been completely dismantled, rebuilt and restored. The impressive, 3,178-pipe, 45-rank, four-manual instrument was built in 1910 by the Austin Organ Company of Hartford, Connecticut, and exists today as one of a very small number of surviving examples of intact and original symphonic organs from the transitional period between the turn of the century and World War I.
For further information about the performance, call 570-941-7624, email music@scranton.edu or visit the Performance Music website. For additional info on Chung, visit janetsorachung.com.
