2017 International Performer of the
Year Award winner
We are delighted to announce that James
David Christie has been chosen by the membership to be the winner of the
2017
International Performer of the Year Award. We had a superb
slate of finalists and the race was extremely close. It
also saw the highest level of participation from the Chapter,
which is always encouraging. Jim will be the twenty-first
winner
of the coveted award, which was created in 1978 to recognize
excellence in organ performance and to increase public
awareness
of the organ and its performers. The award is considered
by many to be the highest honor given to organists by a
professional musicians' guild in the United States.
Jim is well known to many of us in the AGO and the national
and international organ scenes. He has performed, literally,
around the world with symphony orchestras and period instrument
ensembles as well as in solo recitals. He was the 1979 First
Prize winner of the Bruges (Belgium) International Organ
Competition and was the first American to win First Prize
in this prestigious competition as well as the first person
in the competition’s eighteen-year history to win both
the First Prize and the Prize of the Audience.
Dr. Christie was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts
degree from the New England School of Law for his outstanding
contributions to the musical life of Boston and the New England
Conservatory honored him with their Outstanding Alumni Award.
He has served on international organ competition juries in
Paris, St. Omer-Wasquehal, Chartres, Biarritz, Béthune,
St. Albans, Amsterdam, Lübeck, Bordeaux, Dublin, Worcester,
Calgary, Montréal, Columbus, Dallas, Leipzig, Erfurt,
Weimar, Merseburg, Speyer, Tokyo, Moscow, Kaliningrad, Astana,
Lausanne, Pistoia, Boston, Bruges and several others.
He holds positions as Chair and Professor of Organ at the
Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, Ohio, Distinguished
Artist-in-Residence at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester,
Mass., and serves as College Organist at Wellesley College,
Wellesley, Mass.. He has served as organist for the Boston
Symphony Orchestra since 1978. He has previously held positions
at
Boston Conservatory, Harvard University, M.I.T. and Boston
University.
Dr. Christie will be presented in recital at a future date.
|
