08/31/22 PROGRAM

MAJESTIC SOUNDS 

Celebrating the Sounds of the Pipe Organ 

Concerts are free to the public.
They will be performed live at the
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Peoria, Illinois.

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  |  JONATHAN GIBLIN

Director of Music Ministries
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Peoria, IL

Jonathan P. Giblin grew up in Connecticut studying piano, organ, and singing in choirs. Jonathan attended the University of Connecticut, earning undergraduate degrees in both music education and organ performance. He entered graduate studies at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music; obtaining both a master’s and doctoral degree in organ performance. Since the age of 13, he has been serving churches in Connecticut, Ohio, Maryland, and Virginia as an organist and choir director. Jonathan currently serves as Director of Music Ministries at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Peoria, Illinois. Dr. Giblin has performed in some of the world’s greatest venues, including St. John the Divine (NYC), Carnegie Hall, the National Cathedral, and the Kennedy Center. Since 2019, Dr. Giblin has served as an affiliate instructor at Bradley University teaching courses in music history, and music appreciation, and serving as an accompanist.

AUGUST 10  |  7:30 PM

WALTER STOUT

Organist
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Bloomington, IL

A native of Pittsburgh, PA, Walter J. Stout has been active as a church musician since age 15, serving churches in central Texas, Oklahoma, and Illinois. He received the Bachelor of Music (Magna Cum Laude) in organ performance from Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos; and the Master of Music in organ performance from the University of Tulsa. Walter has also completed postgraduate study in organ at the University of North Texas and the University of Oklahoma. He has extensive experience as a church musician, solo artist, accompanist, and choral conductor.

Since relocating to central Illinois in 2010, Mr. Stout has served as an organist at Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bartonville. In December 2021, he assumed the duties of Organist / Pianist / Worship Musician at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bloomington. There he plays the 2005 Berghaus organ and directors the adult and handbell choirs.

08/17/22 PROGRAM

AUGUST 17  |  7:30 PM

DR. JOHN ORFE

Organist
First Methodist Church, Peoria, IL

John Orfe’s music has been performed worldwide. He has fulfilled commissions from choirs, orchestras, chamber ensembles, and organizations including Alarm Will Sound, Illinois Wesleyan University, Choral Arts Ensemble, Two Rivers Chorale, Duo Montagnard, Music Institute of Chicago, Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, and the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois. Ensembles that have performed his music include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Spokane Symphony Orchestra, Mannes American Composers Ensemble, John Alexander Singers, Mizzou University Singers, Illinois State University Concert Choir, Bethel University Choir, UIUC combined Glee Clubs, new music ensembles at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Southern Illinois University, and Bowling Green State University. His work has earned praise from The New York Times, LAWeekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Die Welt, and icareifyoulisten among other media. He is a winner of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, a Tanglewood Music Center Fellowship, the William Schuman and Boudleaux Bryant Prizes from BMI, fourteen Standard Awards and the Morton Gould Award from ASCAP, the Heckscher Prize from Ithaca College, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and first prizes in national competitions held by NACUSA, the Pacific Chorale, Choral Arts Ensemble, Eastern Trombone Workshop, and New Music Delaware. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music and a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from the University of Rochester, as well as Master of Music, Master of Musical Arts, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Yale School of Music. He served as the Peoria Symphony Orchestra’s first-ever Composer-in-Residence and was on of InterBusiness Magazine’s “40 Under 40.” He was a featured composer for SIU-Carbondale’s 2022 Outside the Box new music festival. The music of Dr. Orfe appears on the Centaur, Delos, and Nonesuch labels.

As a pianist, Orfe has earned critical acclaim for his interpretations of five centuries of keyboard repertoire ranging from the canonic to the arcane. The core pianist and a founding member of critically-acclaimed new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, Orfe has performed in Carnegie Hall, Miller Theatre, Roulette, the World Financial Center, and Symphony Space in New York; Disney Hall, Mondavi Hall, and Hertz Hall in California; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; and music series and festivals across the United States, Europe, and Asia including Beijing, Nanning, Seoul, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krakow, Amsterdam, Berlin, Bremen, Bolzano, Cork, Hamburg, London, Lima, San Jose, Quito, and Saõ Paolo. Starting in 2019 he has served regularly as a pianist for Present Music in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most recently, Orfe edited and premiered the organ part of Raven Chacon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Voiceless Mass, commissioned by Present music and written especially for the organ at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. Orfe will record that work in July 2022 and has recorded it on the Canteloupe, Nonesuch, Kairos, and Parma labels.

John Orfe serves as Organist at First United Methodist Church in Peoria, Illinois, where he is also Interim Director of Traditional Music. He has taught at Dickinson College, Bradley University, and Illinois Wesleyan University.

08/24/22 PROGRAM

AUGUST 24  |  7:30 PM

THOMAS CLARK-JONES

Organist
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Peoria, IL

Thomas Clark-Jones is the Organist-Choirmaster of Westminster Presbyterian Church, a post he has held since 2015.  Mr. Clark-Jones is a native of Northeastern Pennsylvania and began his musical education there as a piano student of Ruth Turn Reynolds and Anne Vanko Liva, and an organ student of Louie Weigand Ayre.  As a boy chorister, he sang at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Wilkes Barre under the direction of Clifford E. Balshaw, who later became his college organ professor and musical mentor.  He took his undergraduate degree at Wilkes University conservatory of music.  After graduation from Wilkes, he moved on to Philadelphia where he studied with Alexander McCurdy at the Curtis Institute earning a  Performer’s Certificate.  He earned a B.A. in Organ Performance at the College of New Jersey and did graduate studies at Westminster Choir College in Princeton. Along the way he also studied with Robert Plimpton (later the Civic Organist for San Diego, California); J. Earl Ness, and Judith and Gerre Hancock during their time at St. Thomas Church, New York.

Mr. Clark-Jones was appointed Organist-Choirmaster of St. Clement’s Episcopal Church in Wilkes Barre in 1966, succeeding his first organ teacher, Louie Ayre. Upon arriving in Philadelphia, he was a sub-organist at St. Mark’s Church, assisting Geroge Tobias the Choirmaster. In 1972, he was appointed Musical Director and Organist of Abington Church, American Baptist in Abington, Montgomery County, PA.  He was also the organist-choir director of Temple Shalom in Levittown, Pennsylvania.  Making his first venture into the mid-west, he accepted the position of Organist-Music Director of Court Street Church (United Methodist) in Flint, Michigan in 1977 and spent the next decade in Flint, also teaching organ and church music classes at the University of Michigan’s Flint College.  In 1986, he accepted the invitation of First Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg, Virginia to become their Organist-Choirmaster.  In Lynchburg he also directed the Fine Arts Center Choir (later the Jefferson Choral Society) and founded “Cantate”, the Children’s Choir of Central Virginia which was an award-winning venture from its inception, later helping to place boys from Central Virginia in the American Boy Choir in Princeton, New Jersey.

In 1996, he moved on to First Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee where he led a large music program, including a professional and semi-professional parish choir, whose number included Master and Doctoral vocalists from the University of Tennessee.  In 1998, he was invited to join the staff of Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and he remained there until his retirement in 2014, playing the church’s superb Skinner/Moller organ and directing a graded choir program of much renown.  He also served the American Guild of Organists as a member of the Board of the Philadelphia Chapter; Dean of the Flint Chapter; and District Convener for Virginia. In Harrisburg, he chaired the program committee for a Region III Convention of the Guild and later became Dean of the Chapter.

Mr. Clark-Jones is married to the Rev. Denise Clark-Jones, pastor of Westminster Church. He and Denise have three children and three grandchildren… a delightful beautiful family.

08/31/22 PROGRAM

AUGUST 31  |  7:30 PM

DAVID BYRKIT

Organist
Lutheran Hillside Village, Peoria, IL
Chapter Dean of the Peoria area

David Byrkit is a native of Peoria and earned his bachelor’s degree at Bradley University.  He did graduate studies in music at Texas Christian University, Southern Methodist University, Brooklyn Conservatory, Juilliard, and Mannes School of Music in New York City. David spent some 25 years as an organist choirmaster in New York before returning home to Peoria.  Here he worked as both Organist and Choirmaster at Westminster at various times.  He currently plays services at the chapel at Lutheran Hillside Village here in Peoria, as well as doing extensive substitute work in various area churches.  He is the Dean of the Peoria Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and an avid advocate for the arts in the greater Peoria area.

AUGUST 31  |  7:30 PM

DR. KIPP CORTEZ

Asst. Organist
The Chapel of St. John the Divine, Champaign, IL

Dr. Kipp Cortez has led a varied and interesting career as a church organist and choir director, university professor, carillonneur, and organ builder. Since April of 2021, he has worked in the service department at John-Paul Buzard Pipe Organ Builders where he has worked on the restoration and renovation of several historic instruments. He serves as Assistant Organist at the Chapel of Saint John the Divine in Champaign where he regularly plays Buzard Opus 7.

Kipp is originally from the Chicago suburb of LaGrange Park. He took degrees in organ and sacred music at Valparaiso University (B.Mus) and the University of Michigan (M.Mus and D.M.A.). His organ teachers were Dennis Northway, Lorraine Brugh, James Kibbie, and Marilyn Mason. He also studied carillon with Steven Ball and Dennis Curry. He was named to the Diapason Magazine 20 under 30 class of 2016.

AUGUST 31  |  7:30 PM

ADAM GERIK

Organist
Sacred Heart and St. Joseph Church, Peoria, IL

Adam Gerik grew up in Wichita, Kansas studying piano and organ. He attended Fort Hays State University on a piano scholarship, but veered away from music to concentrate on journalism and technology. After moving to Peoria in 2005, he began regularly subbing for numerous churches in the region, eventually settling down as organist at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Downtown Peoria and St. Joseph Catholic Church in South Peoria (with one of the oldest pipe organs in the area.)

Adam has also been fortunate to play with the Peoria Symphony Orchestra and recently re-entered the world of musical theater with Eastlight Theatre in their pit orchestra.

When not keeping busy with his day job as a newspaper editor, Adam can also be found stringing antennas in his backyard as an amateur radio operator and watching Turner Classic Movies more than he should.

The Organ