Hope College will present internationally acclaimed organist James Kibbie in a performance on Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 7:30 p.m. in room 113 of Nykerk Hall of Music.
The public is invited. The performance is free, but tickets are required.
Kibbie is professor of organ at the University of Michigan and maintains a full schedule of concert, recording and festival engagements throughout North America and Europe, including appearances at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, Royal Festival Hall in London, Dvorak Hall in Prague, and Lincoln Center in New York. During his month-long concert tour of the Soviet Union in 1991, "Pravda" hailed him as "a marvelous organist, a brilliant interpreter." A frequent jury member of international organ competitions, he has himself been awarded the Grand Prix d'Interprétation at the prestigious International Organ Competition of Chartres, France, and is also the only American to have won the International Organ Competition of the Prague Spring Festival in Czechoslovakia.
"James Kibbie plays with surpassing clarity, brilliance and magnificence" said "Ars Organi" of Germany.
Kibbie's performances have been broadcast on radio and television in the United States, Canada, and Europe. His compact disc recordings include "Merrily on Hill," recorded on the famed Skinner organ in Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor; the complete Clavierübung III by J. S. Bach; works of Dieterich Buxtehude performed on the historic 1687 Schnitger organ of Norden, Germany; and discs of music by Alain, Tournemire, Sowande, Morrison and 20th-century Czech composers.
"He unfolded a torrential virtuosity, revealed in a storm of light," wrote "Le Monde."
His program at Hope College will include works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Cesar Franck, Jehan Alain and Jiri Ropek.
Tickets for the concert may be reserved by calling the college's department of music at (616) 395-7650. The department is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is in Nykerk Hall of Music, which is located on the former 12th Street between College and Columbia avenues.