Katelyn Emerson

Katelyn Emerson, organist

katelyn.emerson@gmail.com

Organist Katelyn Emerson performs throughout the United States and Europe, showcasing repertoire from the 14th-20th centuries and giving “superlative performance with musical precision” (Worcester Chapter, American Guild of Organists). She has performed in numerous venues, notably including the Cathédrale Poitiers (France), St. Patrick’s Cathedral (New York, NY), Severance Hall (Cleveland, OH), and Reith Recital Hall at Goshen College (IN).

Katelyn received the Second Jean Boyer Award in the 2014 Fifth International Organ Competition Pierre de Manchicourt in Béthune and Saint-Omer, France and the second prize of the 2015 Arthur Poister Scholarship Competition in Syracuse, New York. As the youngest of seven finalists, she was awarded the title of Laureate and Third Place among other prizes in the 2013 VIII Mikael Tariverdiev International Organ Competition held in Kaliningrad, Russia. She makes her French and Russian concertizing debut in the 2015-2016 concert season. Katelyn was also chosen as one of The Diapason’s “20 under 30 – Class of 2015,” a group of young organists, organ builders, harpsichordists, and choral directors showing “superior accomplishments, leadership, creativity, and innovative thinking,” and was featured in The

Diapason’s May 2015 issue. Winner of the 2011 Region V AGO/Quimby Regional Competition for Young Organists in Lexington Kentucky, Katelyn performed as a “Rising Star” at the AGO National Convention in Nashville, TN during the summer of 2012. She also won first place in the L. Cameron Johnson Memorial Competition for High School Organists in 2010, received the 2013 M. Louise Miller Scholarship, and was a 2014 Fellow at the Boston, Massachusetts AGO National Convention. Following Katelyn’s 2015 concert at the Church on the Cape in Cape Porpoise, Maine, the board of the McClelland Community Music Foundation was moved to create and award her a scholarship to accompany Katelyn in her future studies.

As a recipient of a J. William Fulbright Study/Research Grant, Katelyn is studying at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional in Toulouse, France for the 2015-2016 academic year with Michel Bouvard, Jan Willem Jansen, and Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard. In May 2015, Katelyn graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory (Oberlin, OH) with double bachelor’s degrees in organ performance and French as well as with minors in music history and historical performance (fortepiano). During her time at Oberlin, she taught music theory at the Oberlin Community Music School, received the Selby Harlan Houston prize for distinguished work in organ and music theory, and was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda, the national music honors society. Katelyn began her organ studies in 2005 through a scholarship of the Young Organist Collaborative (Portsmouth, NH). She has studied with James David Christie, Olivier Latry, Marie-Louise Langlais, Ray Cornils, and Dr. Abbey Hallberg-Siegfried. She has also studied organ improvisation with Jeffrey Brillhart, Marie-Louise Langlais, and Bálint Karosi, piano with Arlene Kies, fortepiano with David Breitman, and both harpsichord and continuo with Webb Wiggins. Katelyn frequently presents masterclasses on organ interpretation and church music for AGO-sponsored events. She has been on the faculty of several AGO Pipe Organ Encounters and at the Oberlin Summer Organ Academy.

From 2010-2015, Katelyn was music director of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Amherst, OH, where she directed the adult and the hand-bell choirs and led services on the piano and organ. Katelyn was the 2013- 2014 Sacred Music Intern at the Church of the Advent in Boston, MA, working and studying with Mark Dwyer and Ross Wood, and, in January 2012, Katelyn served as the Oberlin Sacred Music Intern under music director Keith Tóth at the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York, NY, where she substituted as organist and choirmaster for the month of July in 2012 and 2013. Katelyn has been invited to present workshops on recently published organ music for church services in the 2013 Regional Convention of the AGO in Hartford, Connecticut, Regions I & II, and the 2015 Northeastern Regional Convention of the AGO in New Haven, Connecticut.

http://www.katelynemerson.com 1 207 351 5870