Stephen Tharp
November 2005
Related program: 
Even Stephen (#0545)
Related program: An Organist's Yearbook (#0552)
Stephen Tharp's "Credo" (audio)
Stephen Tharp
Stephen Tharp, hailed as “the organist for the connoisseur” (
Organ magazine, Germany), “the thinking person’s performer” (
Het Orgel), “every bit the equal of any organist” (
The American Organist magazine) and “the consummate creative artist” (Michael Barone,
Pipedreams), is recognized as one of the great concert organists of our age. Having played 30 solo intercontinental tours and more than 800 North American concerts, Stephen Tharp has built one of the most critically-acclaimed and well-respected international careers in the world, earning him the reputation as the most traveled concert organist if his generation. He is currently Artist-in-Residence at Grace Church (Episcopal), in New York City, working with Music Director Patrick Allen within an extensive music program involving numerous choirs and several well-established concert series’.
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His exhaustive list of performances since 1987 includes such distinguished venues as St. Bavo, Haarlem; The Royal Albert Hall, London; St. Eustache, Paris; Ste. Croix, Bordeaux; The Hong Kong Cultural Centre; the Town Halls of Sydney and Adelaide, Australia; Tchaikovsky Hall, Moscow; the Tonhalle, Zurich; the Duomo, Milano, Italy; the cathedrals in Berlin, Köln, München, Münster Passau, Weingarten and Würzburg; the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, Germany; Antwerp Cathedral, Belgium; Dvorak Hall, Prague; the Hallgrimskirkju, Reykjavik, Iceland; The Kimmel Center, Philadelphia; The Crystal Cathedral, Garden Grove, CA; The Riverside Church, New York City; Rice University, Houston; Spivey Hall, Atlanta; Severance Hall, Cleveland; Symphony Center, Chicago; and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles.
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Stephen Tharp remains one of the most important champions of new organ music in the world, and continues to commission and premiere numerous compositions for the instrument. The first such piece was Jean Guillou’s
Instants, Op. 57, which Tharp premiered at King’s College, Cambridge, England in February 1998. Works subsequently dedicated to him include David Briggs’
Toccata “Labyrinth” (2006); Samuel Adler’s
Sonata (2005); Eugenio Fagiani’s
Stèle (2003); Thierry Escaich’s
Trois Poèmes (2002); Philip Moore’s
Sinfonietta (2001); Anthony Newman’s
Tombeau d'Igor Stravinsky (2000),
Toccata and Fuga Sinfonica on BACH (1999) and the
Second Symphony (1992); Martha Sullivan's
Slingshot Shivaree for Organ and Percussion (1999); and Morgan Simmons
Sequencia Pedalia (1995). Himself a composer, Tharp was commissioned by Cologne Cathedral, Germany to compose for Easter Sunday, 2006 his
Easter Fanfares for the inauguration of the organ’s new en chamade Tubas stops.
Mr. Tharp’s live playing has been broadcast on both English and Irish national television, on Radio Prague, orgelnieuws.nl in the Netherlands, and in the U. S. on Minnesota Public Radio’s
Pipedreams (www.pipedreams.org). In November 2005,
Pipedreams broadcast an entire programme dedicated exclusively to his career, making him one of the few organists in the world so honoured.
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He is also an active chamber musician nationwide, having performed on organ, piano and harpsichord with artists such as Thomas Hampson, Itzhak Perlman, Jennifer Larmore, Rachel Barton Pine, the American Boychoir (James Litton, conductor), the St. Thomas Choir (John Scott, conductor, in Duruflé’s
Requiem), and at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. His 12 solo organ recordings can be found on the JAV, Naxos, Organum and Ethereal labels, and are available from the Organ Historical Society (www.ohscatalog.org) and JAV Recordings (www.pipeorgancds.com).
