Award-winning concert organist and composer Bálint Karosi will appear in concert at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15, in the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.
The recital, free and open to the public, is the first in this season’s Organ Artist Series, sponsored by the university’s Music Department.
Karosi will perform works of Buxtehude, Bach, Liszt, and his own Organ Symphony No. 1 in memory of Béla Bartok. A reception honoring Karosi will follow the concert. The chapel is on Cleveland Avenue at Laurel Avenue. For more information call (651) 962-5850 or visit this Music Department website.
The day before, from 1-4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, Karosi will conduct a master class for organists in St. Mary’s Chapel at the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity.
The master class will feature undergraduate and graduate organ students from St. Thomas, the University of Minnesota, Saint John’s University and St. Olaf College. The class, sponsored by the Twin Cities chapter of the American Guild of Organists, is free. More information can be found at the guild’s website. The chapel is located at 2260 Summit Ave.
Born in Budapest, Karosi recently was appointed cantor at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in New York City. Winner of the Leipzig International Bach Festival and other competitions, he has appeared as recitalist at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Béla Bartok National Concert Hall, the Liszt Academy in Budapest and the Boston Early Music Festival.
In addition to performing as an organist, he also is a harpsichordist, conductor and has composed works for choirs, solo organ and orchestra. His performances, including his Concerto for Organ and Symphony Orchestra, have been featured on American Public Media’s nationally syndicated radio program “Pipedreams.”
At St. Thomas, Karosi will be using the university’s chapel organ that was installed in 1987 thanks to a donation from alumnus Robert Asmuth. Built by Gabriel Kney of London, Ontario, the organ is a three-manual instrument with 41 stops of 56 ranks, with a total of 2,787 pipes. It is used for worship, teaching and concerts.
Its dedicatory recital was played by Swedish organist Hans Fagius on Sept. 20, 1987. Since then, the university’s Organ Artist Recital Series has become one of the premier pipe-organ concert series in the Twin Cities.
