Our end-of-summer concert series is ending with a familiar name to Peoria-area music lovers: Dr. John Orfe. He’ll perform music by J.S. Bach, Pamela Decker and his own organ works.
Make plans to join us on August 23 at 7:30 p.m. at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 1420 W. Moss Ave. in Peoria.
Our last two Summer Fest 2023 concerts:
– Kipp Cortez on August 9
– Jon Giblin and Walter Stout on August 16
More about this week’s artist:
John Orfe’s music has been performed worldwide. He has fulfilled commissions from choirs, orchestras, chamber ensembles, and organizations including Alarm Will Sound, Illinois Wesleyan University, Choral Arts Ensemble, Two Rivers Chorale, Duo Montagnard, Music Institute of Chicago, Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, and the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois. Ensembles that have performed his music include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Spokane Symphony Orchestra, Mannes American Composers Ensemble, John Alexander Singers, Mizzou University Singers, Illinois State University Concert Choir, Bethel University Choir, UIUC combined Glee Clubs, new music ensembles at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Southern Illinois University, and Bowling Green State University. His work has earned praise from The New York Times, LAWeekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Die Welt, and icareifyoulisten among other media. He is a winner of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, a Tanglewood Music Center Fellowship, the William Schuman and Boudleaux Bryant Prizes from BMI, fourteen Standard Awards and the Morton Gould Award from ASCAP, the Heckscher Prize from Ithaca College, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and first prizes in national competitions held by NACUSA, the Pacific Chorale, Choral Arts Ensemble, Eastern Trombone Workshop, and New Music Delaware. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music and a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from the University of Rochester, as well as Master of Music, Master of Musical Arts, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Yale School of Music. He served as the Peoria Symphony Orchestra’s first-ever Composer-in-Residence and was on of InterBusiness Magazine’s “40 Under 40.” He was a featured composer for SIU-Carbondale’s 2022 Outside the Box new music festival. The music of Dr. Orfe appears on the Centaur, Delos, and Nonesuch labels.
As a pianist, Orfe has earned critical acclaim for his interpretations of five centuries of keyboard repertoire ranging from the canonic to the arcane. The core pianist and a founding member of critically-acclaimed new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, Orfe has performed in Carnegie Hall, Miller Theatre, Roulette, the World Financial Center, and Symphony Space in New York; Disney Hall, Mondavi Hall, and Hertz Hall in California; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; and music series and festivals across the United States, Europe, and Asia including Beijing, Nanning, Seoul, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krakow, Amsterdam, Berlin, Bremen, Bolzano, Cork, Hamburg, London, Lima, San Jose, Quito, and Saõ Paolo. Starting in 2019 he has served regularly as a pianist for Present Music in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most recently, Orfe edited and premiered the organ part of Raven Chacon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Voiceless Mass, commissioned by Present music and written especially for the organ at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. Orfe will record that work in July 2022 and has recorded it on the Canteloupe, Nonesuch, Kairos, and Parma labels.
John Orfe serves as Organist at First United Methodist Church in Peoria, Illinois, where he is also Interim Director of Traditional Music. He has taught at Dickinson College, Bradley University, and Illinois Wesleyan University.
Peoria Chapter of the American Guild of Organists 