Acclaimed organist Raúl Prieto Ramírez will present the annual Donia Organ Recital at Hope College on Tuesday, Sept. 26, at 7 p.m. in the Concert Hall of Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
Ramirez will be performing instead of Cherry Rhoades, who was previously announced as this year’s guest artist but will be unable to visit.
With words such as “sizzling” and “transcendent” used to describe his performances, Raúl Prieto Ramírez enjoys a busy global performing schedule that takes him to major music festivals, churches and cathedrals, concert halls (from Russia to major venues through Europe and the U.S.), universities, and, as juror, international competitions.
In December 2017, he was appointed the San Diego Civic Organist and Artistic Director of the Spreckels Organ Society, where he presides over the famed Austin organ at the city’s Balboa Park Pavilion — the largest open-air musical instrument in the world. Ramirez is the eighth Civic Organist to serve San Diego on the Spreckels organ bench.
After studies in Spain, Ramírez moved to Stuttgart to study organ with Ludger Lohmann and, concurrently, piano with Leonid Sintsev at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg. He also studied organ under Marie-Claire Alain, Guy Bovet, Eric Lebrun, Lionel Rogg and Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini. His compositions for chamber ensemble, pipe organ and solo instruments have been broadcast throughout Spain, and his concerto for organ and orchestra premiered in Barcelona. His transcriptions of Liszt’s piano études and “Mephisto Waltz” and his interpretations of the music of Buxtehude, Bach, Franck and Reger have been highly praised by audiences and critics alike.
From 2013 to 2017, Ramírez served as organist-in-residence at Sursa Concert Hall and the professor of organ at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. He continues as the Artistic Director and Founder of the Barcelona Summer Organ Festival and Academy. Ramírez has been widely recorded and interviewed for radio and television in several European countries and in the U.S. His first two compact discs, on the Brilliant Classics label, were recorded at Milan Cathedral in Italy (music of Franck, Liszt, Reger and Saint-Saëns) and at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona (music for piano and organ duet). Ramirez and his wife, Spanish pianist Maria Teresa Sierra, perform frequently in concert together.
Raúl Prieto Ramírez is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists LLC.
The recital is made possible through the generous support of the college’s Tom Donia Memorial Organ Fund. The fund was created in 1990 by the family and friends of Donia, a 1971 Hope graduate who died in 1990. The director of communications for the American Red Cross, Donia had a lifelong interest in music and loved the pipe organ in particular.
To inquire about accessibility or if you need accommodations to fully participate in the event, please email accommodations@hope.edu. Updates related to events are posted when available in the individual listings at hope.edu/calendar.
The Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts is located at 221 Columbia Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets.