Meet the Judges
Meet the judges behind the 2019 Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival Hartford:
Diane Meredith Belcher
Internationally renowned organist Diane Meredith Belcher has performed throughout the United States, in Europe, and in Canada, including appearances at Disney Hall, Grace Cathedral, Verizon Hall, Girard College, Benaroya Hall, Woolsey Hall, and the Oregon Bach Festival. Her orchestral appearances are numerous, and she has presented duo-recitals with such artists as New York Philharmonic's trombonist Joseph Alessi, and Los Angeles Philharmonic's trumpeter Rob Roy McGregor. Among her several recordings is the premiere of the Claremont Glatter-Götz/Rosales organ, which won the Golden Ear Award in 2000. She is Lecturer in Music at Dartmouth College in Organ and Music Theory, director of the college's new early music ensemble Clamare, and serves as Music Director at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Hanover, NH. For more information, visit www.concertorganists.com/artists/diane-meredith-belcher.
Thomas Murray
Thomas Murray was a member of the faculty of the Yale School of Music from 1981 to 2019, and was appointed University Organist in 1990. His performing career has taken him to all parts of Europe and to Japan, Australia, and Argentina. He has appeared as a soloist with the Pittsburgh, Houston, Milwaukee, and New Haven symphony orchestras, the National Chamber Orchestra in Washington, D.C., and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra during its tour of Finland in 1996. The American Guild of Organists named him International Performer of the Year in 1986. The Royal College of Organists in England awarded him an FRCO diploma honoris causain 2003, and in 2007 the Yale School of Music awarded him the Gustave Stoeckel Award for excellence in teaching. For more information, visit http://www.concertorganists.com/artists/thomas-murray/.
John Rose
American concert organist John Rose has performed in 45 of the United States and has made a number of foreign concert tours to Australia, Canada, Mexico, and various European countries. He served as College Organist and Director of Music at Trinity College in Hartford from 1977 to 2017. In the United States he has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Davies Hall in San Francisco, the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, and a host of other halls, churches, and campuses around the country both as recitalist and orchestral soloist. In Europe his tours have been highlighted by performances at such landmark churches as St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey in London and Notre Dame in Paris. He has made festival appearances in Australia, Belgium, England, Mexico, Norway, and Scotland. He has been a featured artist at national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, the American Pipe Organ Builders Association, and the American Institute of Organbuilders. John Rose has recorded sixteen CD and LP albums, and his discography is highlighted by "The French Romantics" series which has drawn extensive radio airplay and enthusiastic critical praise. Critic Scott Cantrell called one of his albums "possibly the most exciting organ recording I've ever heard."