Organ Festival

          
The Catalina Organ Festival committee announces the 2022 – 2023 guest artists.
The winter season will feature 3 international artists.  The concerts are held on Friday evenings in the Sanctuary
                                                                                  
Aaron Tan  – February 10, 2023
 
 
 
Hector Olivera  – March 17, 2023
 
 
In From the Heat – June 17 and July 15, 2023
The Catalina Organ Festival is happy to announce the return of the ‘In from the Heat’
summer luncheon and recitals in June and July of 2023.   Guest Performers will be Paul Oftedahl and Stephen Keyl.  
Chefs du jour will be Bruce Gillaspie and Todd Eanes.  Reserve the Saturday dates June 17 and July 15.
 
 
 

History of the Catalina Organ Festival

This music ministry of Catalina UMC was established with the dedication of the new organ in 2014.  Each year 3 outstanding organists from around the U. S., Canada and the world come to Tucson.  Last year with the lifting of COVID restrictions  Bradley Welch (US), Isabelle Demers (Canada), and David Briggs (UK) were the headliners.

 

Internationally Renowned Musicians

The Catalina Organ Festival has recently hosted international performing organists Shin-Young Lee (Nov. 2019), Kimberly Marshall (Feb 2020) and the Southwestern Premiere of Dr. Pamela Decker’s monumental ‘The Last Words and Triumph of Christ’, performed by Douglas Cleveland (Feb 2019) with choreography by Kaley Jensen and U of A dancers Danielle Goodman and Shelby Foster.

The festival has also been fortunate to host Olivier Latry, Katelyn Emerson, Crista Miller, David Enlow, John Schwandt, Raúl Prieto Ramírez, Isabelle Demers, Christopher Houlihan, Ken Cowan, Peter Krasinski, Colin Lynch, Jan Kraybill and Dorothy

Papadakos. International artists, Renée Anne Louprette and Chelsea Chen have also performed honoring the legacy of the late Roy Johnson, professor of organ at the University of Arizona.

In addition, to the major winter concert venues the summer ‘In From The Heat’ luncheon recital series feature local organists from the Southwest. The 2019 summer concerts included Ilona Kubiaczyk-Adler, Janet Tolman, Larry Kuipers, Dennis Grannan, Maxine Thévenot and Edmund Connolly. Other regional organists have brought memorable recitals to our summer series: Joseph Ripka, Ji-Sun Lee, Michael Lich, Gordon Stevenson, Margaret Martin Kvamme, Paul Lee, Pamela Decker, Jeffrey Campbell, David Horr, Douglas Leightenheimer, Woosug Kang, Emma Whitten, Jared Isaac Aragon with Samavaya and David Ramirez on flutes.

We would like to also thank the S. Arizona Chapter of American Guild of Organists (SAAGO), Catalina United Methodist Church and the many ‘angels’ who have generously supported the festival since its inception in 2014!