David Higgs, organ
Nathan Laube, organ
William Porter, organ
Stephen Kennedy, organ
 

The Third Thursdays with Eastman’s Italian Baroque Organ at the Memorial Art Gallery concert series presents the third concert in the 2025-26 season, featuring  the organ faculty of the Eastman School of Music – David Higgs, Nathan Laube, William Porter, and Stephen Kennedy – in a concert to honor the memory of the late Edoardo Bellotti. 

One of America’s leading concert organists, David Higgs is the Minehan Family Professor of Organ and Chair of the Organ Department at the Eastman School of Music. He performs extensively throughout the United States and abroad and has inaugurated many important new instruments including those of Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas; St. Albans Cathedral, England; and St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna. For over twenty years he performed annual holiday organ concerts at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. He has performed with numerous ensembles including Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus Ensemble, Chanticleer, and Empire Brass, and numerous symphony orchestras throughout the country. Mr. Higgs appears at organ festivals and competitions including the Stockholm Organspace Festival; Fribourg International Organ Festival; the European Organ Academy Leipzig, the Leipzig Bach Competition, Gottfried Silbermann Competition Freiberg, and Bremen Musikfest; the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival; the Oundle International Festival, the St. Albans International Festival, and the Cambridge Summer Festival; and the Xavier Darasse International Competition in Toulouse. He has been invited to give solo recitals at Notre-Dame Cathedral and Eglise Saint-Sulpice in Paris, and as guest teacher at the Paris Conservatoire. In the East he has also performed at various venues in Hong Kong and Japan. Mr. Higgs has been a member of the faculty at the Eastman School of Music since 1992. Prior to this, he was appointed to the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music upon graduation.

Nathan Laube has performed in major venues worldwide, with appearances at Vienna Konzerthaus, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Berlin Philharmonie, Maison Radio France, Palau de la Música, and Sejong Center, among many others; as well as at Notre-Dame Cathedral and Saint-Sulpice in Paris, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the Frauenkirche in Dresden, and the Berlin Dom. Currently Associate Professor of Organ at the Eastman School of Music, Mr. Laube has also taught at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart. Since 2018 he has held the post of the International Consultant in Organ Studies at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, UK. He has served on juries for international organ competitions, including the 2021 Gottfried Silbermann International Competition in Freiberg, the Martini International Organ Competition, and the Concours International Olivier Messiaen. In 2020 he gave the first solo recital on Austria’s largest pipe organ built by Rieger at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, and on the Rieger in the Cathedral in Graz in 2023. In April 2019, Mr. Laube launched the documentary-style radio program, “All the Stops,” on the WFMT Radio Network Chicago, consisting of four two-hour programs which feature many of the world’s most famous organs in Europe and the United States and explore their unique histories and repertoire.A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Mr. Laube studied at at the Conservatoire Rayonnement Régional in Toulouse with a Fulbright fellowship. He received his Masters at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart under the auspices of a DAAD Grant.

Widely known as a performer in the United States and in Europe, William Porter has also achieved international recognition for his skill in improvisation in a wide variety of styles, ancient and modern.  He has performed at major international festivals and academies, including the North German Organ Academy, the Italian Academy of Music for the Organ, the Smarano Organ and Clavichord Academy, Organfestival Holland, the Göteborg International Organ Academy, the Dollart Festival, the Lausanne Improvisation Festival, the Festival Toulouse les Orgues, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, the McGill International Organ Academy, Eastman’s Improvfest, and the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists.

Professor of Organ, Harpsichord, and Improvisation at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, from 2002 until his retirement in 2013, he has also been a member of the music faculty at McGill University in Montreal, where he lived from 2004 until fall of 2015.  From 1985 to 2002 he taught organ, music history, and music theory at the New England Conservatory in Boston, and from 2001 until 2005 he taught improvisation at Yale University.  Porter holds degrees from Oberlin College, where he also taught organ and harpsichord from 1974 to 1986, and from Yale University.

He has recorded on historic instruments, old and new, for the Gasparo, Proprius, BMG, and Loft labels.  Now residing in Rochester, New York, he has returned to the Eastman School of Music as Adjunct Professor of Organ.

Stephen Kennedy is Director of Music and Organist of Christ Church Rochester, Assistant Professor of Sacred Music at the Eastman School of Music, and Instructor of Organ for Eastman’s Community Music School. In 1997, he founded the Christ Church Schola Cantorum to perform the Office of Compline each Sunday at Christ Church. This acclaimed ensemble of voices and Renaissance instruments specializes in the performance of Plainsong, motets of the Renaissance and Romantic eras, as well as contemporary music and improvisation. The group has been featured in various national radio broadcasts, appeared in international festivals and concerts, and collaborated with ensembles such as the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble, and Ensemble Weser-Renaissance Bremen.  The Schola has recorded for the Arsis and Loft labels.

Stephen has appeared as organ soloist in programs of standard repertoire as well as recitals consisting solely of improvisations. He has performed and lectured for local and regional events of the American Guild of Organists, and has given workshops on choral music, chant, and improvisation in the U.S. and abroad. His compositions have been performed internationally by leading performers in their field. He has also designed aleatoric silent film accompaniments and interdisciplinary performance art.  He has created dance accompaniments such as “Luma Voce”, a dance score of computer-manipulated voice sounds with an overlay of vocal improvisation for the New York City debut of the Rochester City Ballet.
 

Eastman’s Italian Baroque Organ was built around 1770 in central Italy. Restored and installed in 2005 at the Memorial Art Gallery, the instrument is the only one of its kind in North America. The organ’s beautiful, authentic sounds have been heard by thousands of visitors who attend weekly Sunday mini-recitals and special “Third Thursday” concerts by internationally celebrated guest artists and Eastman musicians.

Seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Admission to the concert is included with Gallery admission, which is half-price on Thursday evenings after 5pm and free to University of Rochester ID holders.  This concert is made possible by the Rippey Endowed Trust.