San Diego Civic Organist Featured at Feb. 2 PNC Bank Concert Artist Series

Carol Williams, the city of San Diego civic organist will perform “Organ Pops!” on Sunday, Feb. 2, at 2 p.m. at UT. The concert, which is free and open to the public, is part of the 2013-2014 PNC Bank Concert Artist Series at the Sykes Chapel and Center for Faith and Values.

This performance will be “unlike anything heard on the Dobson organ at UT before,” said Haig Mardirosian, dean of the UT College of Arts and Letters. “Williams is equally at home as a classical musician, or as a jazz or pop player.”

The program will include music by Valente, Reger, Bossi, Williams, Joplin, Gárdonyi, Hudson, Glass, Khachaturian and Kleive.

In addition to being San Diego’s civic organist, Williams is also resident concert organist at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park in San Diego, which is the only outdoor pipe organ in the U.S. and one of the most unique pipe organs in the world.

In a recent interview in the New York Times, Williams said she tries to shed the organ of its “dowdy” image. San Diego Magazine said Williams manages to coax out the organ’s “fun side each time she puts her feet to the pedals and her hands to the keys.”

The unreserved seating in the Sykes Chapel is limited, and doors will open 30 minutes before the performance. Parking is available on campus.

Future performances of the 2013-2014 PNC Bank Concert Artists Series at Sykes Chapel include:

Richard Elliott, Principal Organist of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Sunday, March 2, at 2 p.m. Elliott, recognized through his weekly broadcasts and recordings, will perform works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Maurice Duruflé, John Longhurst and Peter Warlock.
Music for Organ and Piano (and Harpsichord), Sunday, April 6, at 2 p.m. Mardirosian and Grigorios Zamparas, UT associate professor of music, will perform indigenous works and transcriptions for organ, piano and harpsichord by Richard Wagner, César Franck, Marcel Dupré, Antonio Soler and Joe Unterback.

In addition to PNC Bank, the 2013-2014 Concert Artist Series is sponsored by the UT College of Arts and Letters and the Sykes Chapel and Center for Faith and Values.

For more information, contact caldean@ut.edu or go to www.ut.edu/sykeschapel.