St. Alphonsus Parish: Dr. Jonathan Embry, organ

• Jonathan Embry, organ

Raymond Daveluy — Organ Sonata No. 3 ("II. Chaconne")
Johann Sebastian Bach — Schmücke dich o liebe Seele, BWV 654
Paul Hindemith — Organ Sonata No. 1 ("I. Mäßig schnell" & "IV. Ruhig bewegt")
Hugo Distler — Organ Sonata, Op. 18, No. 2 ("III. Recht geschwinde Achtel")
Johann Pachelbel — Chaconne in D major, P. 40
Franz Liszt — Ave Maria d'Arcadelt, S. 183, No. 2
Jonathan Embry — Pastoral in D major (2024)
Matthias Weckmann — Est ist das Heil uns kommen her (verses 6 & 7)

Join St. Alphonsus Parish for the inaguaral program of our concert series. Dr. Jonathan Embry will showcase the spectacular Fritts-Richards organ, which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2025, with a diverse program including a newly composed work by the performer. 

The organ has recently undergone significant care and updates to prepare it for many more decades of music making. The concert is free and open to all, donations accepted and will support the upkeep of the instrument.

About St. Alphonsus Parish (Seattle)

https://stalseattle.org/parish/

About Jonathan Embry, organ

Jonathan Embry, D. Mus., is Director of Music and Organist at the Cathedral of St. Helena. Jonathan earned his doctorate in the studio of Hans-Ola Ericsson at McGill University. He researched North German sacred organ and choral music while on a travel grant to Germany and played historic organs in Lübeck and Hamburg. He received his Master of Sacred Music at the Univ. of Notre Dame studying with Craig Cramer. He received his Bachelor of Music from Syracuse Univ. studying with Kola Owolabi (organ) and Andrew Waggoner (composition).

Dr. Embry has given recitals in the U.S. and Canada including three solo recitals in the Saint Joseph Oratory in Montreal. He toured extensively in Russia, playing concerts in ten cities during two tours. Jonathan was the international guest artist at the Organ Festival in Kondopoga, Russia (2017). He was awarded a citation of gratitude from the Saratov Oblast Government for his Saratov Conservatory concert of popular movie theme music for orphaned, disadvantaged, and disabled children. Jonathan completed a concert tour in Lithuania and performed as a headliner at the Kaliningrad "Territory of the World, the Territory of Music" memorial week for the 75th anniversary of the bombing of the Königsberg Cathedral (2019). Jonathan performed in the Summer Organ Series at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.(2021).

Jonathan has received composition commissions in four countries. In Paradisum op.5 was composed for the Sacred Music Festival in Renfrew, Ontario. His Passacaglia op.4 received honorable mention in the chamber music division of the National American Prize competition and praised as "a major addition to the organ repertoire which requires a masterful, mature and sensitive musician to perform it with clarity and emotional intent." (Dr. Slawomir Dobrzanski, Judge of the American Prize) Jonathan premiered his Four Rhapsodies in Canada, Kaliningrad, and New York. Jonathan composed a choral piece using text from the Diary of St. Faustina for the Shrine of St. Martin of Tours in Louisville and a piece for piano trio performed in fundraising concerts for a Taiwanese Catholic organization in Taipei. He is currently completing a collection of liturgical compositions for the Cathedral of St. Helena, some of which have been published on the Corpus Christi Watershed website.

Jonathan has presented lectures, recitals, and master classes on sacred music and composing for the organ at conferences, and at Canadian and American universities. He is an adjunct faculty member at Carroll College, Helena teaching sacred music and organ.