Eighth annual N.C. High School Organ Festival is Jan. 25-27

The eighth annual North Carolina High School Organ Festival and Competition will be held in Winston–Salem Jan. 25-27, with events at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Salem College and Augsburg Lutheran Church.

Festival Director Timothy Olsen said the festival draws on the city’s rich history and abundant resources of pipe organs and organ music. Olsen is UNCSA’s Kenan Professor of Organ and associate professor of organ at Salem College.

Students from North Carolina, Indiana and Tennessee are registered to compete for prizes that include the Thomas S. Kenan III First Prize of $2,000 or one year of in-state tuition to UNCSA; a second prize of $1,000, sponsored by the Piedmont Chapter of the American Guild of Organists; third prize of $500; and the John and Margaret Mueller Hymn Prize of $350.

The competition on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 25 and 26, includes several events that are free and open to the public:

• UNCSA organ student recital on UNCSA’s C.B. Fisk, Op. 75 organ at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25, in Crawford Hall on the UNCSA campus at 1533 South Main St.
• Awards presentation and winners recital at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 26, at Augsburg Lutheran Church at 845 West Fifth St., on the 1968 Casavant with further modifications by Létourneau in 1997.
• Salem College student and faculty recital at 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 26, on the 1965/2013 Flentrop organ at Shirley Recital Hall in Salem’s Elberson Fine Arts Center, 500 East Salem Ave.

On Sunday, Jan. 27, the festival weekend concludes on the UNCSA campus with a workshop on Alexander Technique and injury-preventive keyboard techniques taught by Barbara Lister-Sink, director of Salem’s School of Music, and Suzy Perkins, a certified Alexander Technique instructor; and a master class and individual lessons with Olsen.

by Lauren Whitaker