Joan Lippincott
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JOAN LIPPINCOTT
Biography
JOAN LIPPINCOTT has been acclaimed as one of America’s outstanding organ virtuosos. She performs extensively in the United States under Karen McFarlane Artists and has toured throughout Europe and Canada. She has been a featured recitalist at Alice Tully Hall at LincolnCenter in New York City, at the Spoleto USA Festival, at The American Bach Society Biennial, at the Dublin (Ireland) International Organ Festival, and at conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, and the Music Teachers National Association. She has performed on many of the most prominent organs in churches and universities throughout the United States, including Yale, Harvard, Duke, Stanford, Columbia, and Princeton. She has traveled widely in Europe, studying, playing, and performing in recital on historic and contemporary organs in Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France.
Dr. Lippincott has been especially in demand for Bach recitals and classes. She was recitalist at the Alice Tully Hall Bach-Handel Tercentennial and she has performed at Bach Festivals in Arizona, Massachusetts (Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood), Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and South Carolina. In 2001-2002 she performed a highly acclaimed series of eight Bach organ concerts on outstanding organs throughout New York City, called “Bach in the Big Apple.” In 2008-2009 she performed The Art of Fugue at the Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival, at Princeton Theological Seminary, and at the Boston Early Music Festival.
Her many recordings on the GOTHIC label include music of Bach, Duruflé, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Widor, Alain, and Pinkham on major American organs. The most recent releases are Sinfonia (Organ Concertos and Sinfonias of J.S.Bach with instrumental ensemble) recorded at Princeton Theological Seminary; The Fenner Douglass Organ at Bower Chapel-Moorings Park, Naples, FL; and Weimar Preludes and Fugues (J.S.Bach) at Notre Dame University.
Joan Lippincott presently devotes full time to concertizing and recording. She was Principal University Organist at PrincetonUniversity from 1993 to 2000, and is Professor Emerita of Organ at Westminster Choir College of Rider University. Dr. Lippincott has served on summer faculties at the New England Conservatory of Music, University of Wisconsin, the Montreat Conference, the Evergreen Conference, and Bach Week at ColumbiaCollege.
A graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music and WestminsterChoirCollege, where she was a student of Alexander McCurdy, she also studied at Union Theological Seminary and Princeton Theological Seminary. She has been on the Advisory Board of The American Bach Society,is an honorary member of Sigma Alpha Iota, and has received the Alumni Merit Award, the Distinguished Merit Award, the Williamson Medal, and an Honorary Doctorate from WestminsterChoirCollege.
Current as of May 2009
JOAN LIPPINCOTT
Press Notices
NEW YORK CITY – “Most important perhaps, is her way with rhythm … the mighty Toccata inF had an irresistible and wonderfully humanizing swing about it.”
The New York Times
BOSTON – “Bach’s Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel Hoch displayed an uncommon level of technique, registrational imagination and musical understanding. Bach’s D-minor Toccata and Fugue … she played with the dazzling solidity and simplicity of the laws of the universe.”
Boston Globe
WASHINGTON DC – “A large audience gathered last night at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. … Ms. Lippincott rewarded them with a varied program, given with a mixture of consistently high musicianship and disciplined playing.”
The Evening Star
LOS ANGELES – “Almost everything about Joan Lippincott`s organ recital proved first class ... The organist displayed a strong architectonic flair in both programming and performance, a penchant for detail and more than ample technical facility to realize her interpretative goals.”
The Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES, 2000 Bach Festival, First Congregational Church – “… a balanced wonder of rigorous freedom and grace – the great Bachian paradox of metaphysical abstractions given exuberant musical life.”
The Los Angeles Times
SEATTLE – “She is an exacting musician, intense, positive, and forthright.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
CHICAGO – “Ms. Lippincott’s dazzling recital was … the kind of performance a man is prompted to admiringly call ‘virile.’ The highlight of the afternoon was the performance of the Alain TroisDanses. Ms. Lippincott’s recital was an auspicious opening to the convention.”
Music
DETROIT – “Those who attended the recital can certainly verify why critics have acclaimed Ms. Lippincott as one of America’s outstanding organ virtuosos. The final number was the Preludeand Fugue on BACH of Liszt. It was a tour-de-force and superbly played.”
Worship and Music Notes
ST. LOUIS – “She applied herself with exhilarating effect. … Her stirring performance of the Grande Pièce Symphonique brought the large audience to its feet.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
GRAND RAPIDS – “Lippincott gave the great Toccata in F an extremely fluid touch and the lines sang. I heard new things in the music because of her way of playing it.”
Grand Rapids Press
Joan Lippincott
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CLEVELAND – “Adding to the vibrancy of her performance was her infallible sense of rhythm. … Ms. Lippincott immediately identified herself as a straightforward interpreter, whose playing was clean, technically assured and free from mannerisms.”
The Plain Dealer
LINCOLN – “To be at one with the organ is laudable, but Lippincott was further at one with the music as well. Her playing and body language are harmoniously integrated and fainthearted organists would most likely demand instruments three times the size of Christ United Methodist's with every aid and accoutrement.” Lincoln Journal
PRINCETON – “Sometimes artists provide musical moments that sweep you off your feet. That was the case when Lippincott and the orchestra (Westminster Chamber Orchestra) gave a magnificent performance of Poulenc’s Concerto in G minor for Organ, Strings and Timpani.”
The Star-Ledger (Newark)
TRENTON – “Joan Lippincott … gave a performance of marvelous clarity and tonal range.”
Trenton Times
EDMONTON – “... this was a very fluent performance and … confirmed Lippincott’s reputation as a virtuoso of the organ.” The Edmonton Journal
RECORDING REVIEWS
“Superlatives are inadequate for these performances, both concerning the artist and the instrument … No more effective pairing could be imagined. Dr. Lippincott is an icon in the world of performers … Her interpretations are magnificently rendered.”
The American Organist
“The organ at St. Thomas Church responds vibrantly to her agile interpretations … she walks Bach’s tightrope with impressive poise.”
The American Organist
“A long-established and consummate artist, Joan Lippincott deals with the intricacies of these works as if they were child’s play. But her approach is never trivial.”
Fanfare
“To this reviewer’s ears, this is the single most exciting recording of Bach organ works to appear since the late Anton Heiller made his final Bach series. The same type of rhythmic drive ...”
The Diapason
“Her playing makes this listener see old J. S. Bach, improvising with his blazing virtuosity and passion.” Clavier
“... the playing by Ms. Lippincott is nothing short of stunning and technically virtuosic; she glides through the numerous peaks and valleys with assurance, and manages to bring unity to these highly episodic works. Her style is that of the best of this generation’s concert organists: powerful and emotive, yet sensitive and (above all) in good taste.”
Journal of Church Music
JOAN LIPPINCOTT
Recent Recordings
GOTHIC
J.S.Bach Weimar Preludes and Fugues
University of Notre Dame
The Fenner Douglass Organ
Bower Chapel – MooringsPark, Naples, FL
J.S. Bach Clavierübung III and Schübler Chorales
Princeton Theological Seminary
J.S. Bach Preludes and Fugues
PacificLutheranUniversity
Sinfonia
Organ Concertos and Sinfonias with instrumental ensemble
Princeton Theological Seminary
Bach: The Trio Sonatas
St. Thomas Church, New York City
Leipzig Chorales of J.S. Bach
DukeUniversity
Toccata and Fugues by Bach
DukeUniversity
Princeton University Chapel
Mendelssohn, Duruflé, Howells, Widor
Joan Lippincott & The Philadelphia Brass
PrincetonUniversity Chapel
Mozart and the Organ
OldWestChurch, Boston, MA
Music of Daniel Pinkham and Franz Liszt
House of Hope Presbyterian Church, St. Paul, MN
PGM
The Uncommon Bach – Variants, Rarities and Transcriptions
Joan Lippincott and George Ritchie
Recorded in conjunction with The American Bach Society
Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc.
33563 Seneca Drive • Cleveland, OH 44139
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