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JAMES DAVID CHRISTIE, FORMER ORGANIST FOR THE BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, TO JOIN OBERLIN CONSERVATORY FACULTY
JUNE 24, 2002--James David Christie, organist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) from 1978 to 1998 and, until recently, chair of the organ and harpsichord department at the Boston Conservatory of Music, is joining the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College.
Robert K. Dodson, dean of the Conservatory, announced that Christie -- a 1975 Conservatory graduate -- will be professor of organ effective July 1, 2002.
"We are very pleased that James David Christie is returning to Oberlin as a member of the Conservatory faculty," says Dodson. "He is an important performer and pedagogue, and we are delighted to welcome him home."
In addition to teaching at the Boston Conservatory since 1982, Christie is Distinguished Artist-in-Residence and College Organist at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.; performing artist faculty and curator of organs at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass.; and adjunct professor of organ at Boston University. From 1980 to 1984 he was organist and curator of organs and harpsichords at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
An international organ soloist and recording artist, Christie served for 20 years under Music Director Seiji Ozawa of the BSO. Besides performing and recording with the orchestra, he presented solo fund-raising concerts for the restoration of the Symphony Hall organ and for the Orchestra Pension Fund, and he headed the Organ Restoration Committee.
For 10 years, Christie served as artistic consultant and principal keyboardist of the Handel & Haydn Society in Boston.
He has performed throughout the world in solo concerts and with major symphony and period orchestras under such conductors as Sir Colin Davis, Arthur Fiedler, Kurt Masur, Trevor Pinnock, Sir Simon Rattle, Gunther Schuller, Klaus Tennstedt, and Edo de Waart. From 1977 to 2000 he played continuo and solo organ for the King's Chapel Concert Series (Boston) and, since 1980, he has played continuo for the Bach Ensemble under music director Joshua Rifkin.
His repertoire includes numerous dedicated compositions, commissions, and first performances, including those from, among others, George Crumb, Anton Heiller, Jean Langlais, Thomas Oboe Lee, Thea Musgrave, Daniel Pinkham, Ned Rorem, Arlene Zallman, and Ellen Taafe Zwilich.
Christie received his bachelor of music degree in organ performance from Oberlin in 1975, after performing on more than 150 recitals. He studied with Professor of Organ David Boe and Professor of Harpsichord Lisa Goode Crawford -- whom he now joins as a faculty colleague. Other Oberlin teachers included Fenner Douglass and Doris Ornstein.
Following private study in Paris with Marie-Claire Alain and Jean Langlais, Christie enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC), where he earned a master of music degree in organ performance and the artist's diploma in 1978. At NEC, he studied organ with Yuko Hayashi and choral direction with Lorna Cooke de Varon. He won the NEC concerto competition in 1977 and 1978, becoming the first organist to ever win and the only performer to win twice.
In 1979 he became the first American to win First Prize in the International Organ Competition in Bruges, Belgium, and the first person in the 18-year history of the competition to win both the First Prize and the Prize of the Audience. Other awards include the 1995 Preis der deutschen Schallplatten Kritik for his Naxos recording of the organ work of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and the 2001 Coup de Coeur (highest distinction) by Magazine de l'Orgue (Brussels, Belgium) for a recital disc on JAV Recordings of diverse baroque organ compositions.
Christie has several recordings scheduled for release within the next two years. For Dorian Records, he played harpsichord and directed Ensemble Abendmusik in the world premier of a baroque Jesuit opera by Johann Kapsberger and a reconstructed opera by Domenico Zipoli. Also for Dorian, he is recording a recently discovered chamber work by Antonio Vivaldi with principal players of the Bach Ensemble. With members of the BSO under conductor Robert Spano, also an Oberlin graduate, he is recording Hindemith's Concerto for Organ and Chamber Orchestra, Op. 46, No. 2, for Koch International. Christie will also record the complete organ sonatas of Hindemith to complete the Koch recording.
Christie joins the Oberlin Conservatory faculty at a time when (Cleveland) Plain Dealer music critic Wilma Salisbury identifies the Conservatory as having emerged "as the premiere American institution for the training of organ students." Salisbury's comment was made during the September 2001 dedication of the Kay Africa Memorial organ, the Opus 116, built by C. B. Fisk, Inc., of Gloucester, Mass., in the best of the late-Romantic tradition and based upon the symphonic style of the great French organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.
Ideally suited for the performance of 19th- and 20th-century music, the Fisk Opus 116 in Finney Chapel completed a triad of Oberlin period concert instruments. An organ designed and built in 1974 by D.A. Flentrop in the northern European style of the 18th century is located in the Conservatory's Warner Concert Hall. In 1981 John Brombaugh built an organ for Fairchild Chapel that was modeled on the late Renaissance and early Baroque style of North Germany. The educational value of these three organs in different historic and national styles is of inestimable value to generations of Oberlin Conservatory students.
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865, is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States, and the only major music school in the country linked with a preeminent college of arts and sciences.
Media Contact: Marci Janas
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