James David Christie

International Performer of the Year 2017

	James David Christie

The deeply admired and greatly lauded concert career of organist James David Christie has been marked by performances literally around the globe as a solo organ recitalist and as a performer and concerto soloist with the world’s greatest symphony orchestras and period instrument ensembles. Especially noted for his engaging solo performances of the works of Renaissance and Baroque composers, Dallas Morning News critic Scott Cantrell stated: “There’s a reason James David Christie keeps getting invited to play Baroque music on instruments like this. He does it with both intellectual understanding and visceral flair – and where appropriate, playfulness. He makes the music live and breathe and dance.” Equally admired for his performances of German and French Romantic and Contemporary music, James David Christie has given the premiere performances of over 50 new works and has 10 published works dedicated to him.

He was the first American, and also the first person in the competition’s eighteen-year history to win both the First Prize and the Prize of the Audience at the 1979 Bruges (Belgium) International Organ Competition. Christie has served as Organist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1978 and has performed and recorded with the major orchestras of Vienna, London, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Boston, and numerous others. He has given over sixty concert tours of Europe alone. In the U.S., he is Music Director of Ensemble Abendmusik, a Boston-based period instrument orchestra and chorus. He has performed the Academy of Ancient Music, the Bach Ensemble, Handel & Haydn Society, and the New York Collegium. Additionally, he has served on international organ competition juries in Paris, Chartres, St. Albans, Lübeck, Calgary, Montréal, Dallas, Leipzig, Tokyo, Moscow, Pistoia, Lausanne, Boston, Bruges, and others.

James David Christie has an extensive discography, including performances on the Decca, Philips, Nonesuch, JAV, Denon, RCA, Dorian, and Naxos labels, many of which have received critic’s awards. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the New England School of Law for his outstanding contributions to the musical life of Boston. The New England Conservatory honored him with their Outstanding Alumni Award and, in 2015, he was awarded Oberlin College’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

James David Christie holds positions at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, OH, and Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA. From September through December 2010, he served as visiting professor of organ at the National Paris Conservatory. In the summer of 2012, Dr. Christie was the first American ever to be invited to teach at the 49th Haarlem International Organ Academy in The Netherlands

James David Christie performed the opening concert of the 2014 national convention of the American Guild of Organists at Symphony Hall, Boston, with a program of five works for organ and orchestra; this was his sixth appearance as an AGO national convention featured artist and his fifth convention appearance as a soloist with orchestra. In 2015-2016, he toured throughout the United States, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, The Netherlands, and Canada, served on international organ competition juries in Erfurt-Weimar and Moscow, collaborated on a multi-CD recording of the complete organ works of Johann Pachelbel on historic organs in Thuringia (Germany), and appeared at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the Organ Historical Society’s 60th national convention. Later that summer, he was featured at the Indianapolis regional AGO convention, featured at the national convention of the Royal College of Organists in Winnipeg, Manitoba, performed and gave master classes at the McGill Summer Organ Academy, was a guest faculty member at the University of Music and Theater in Leipzig, Germany, and performed an all-Bach recital at Saint Thomas in Leipzig.

In February and March of 2016, he was organ soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for two subscription weeks under conductors Charles Dutoit and Stéphane Denève and traveled to Germany for a single concert at the Bamberg Philharmonic Hall. In the summer of 2016, he will return to Europe for the Tallinn International Organ Festival, perform five concerts throughout Estonia, offer master classes at the Tallinn Conservatory, and give solo recitals in Germany and The Netherlands. In November 2016, he will perform concerts in France and Great Britain, including a production in Oxford of the Domenico Zipoli/Martin Schmid church opera, San Ignacio de Loyola, with members of Ensemble Abendmusik. In January of 2017, he will visit The Netherlands and Germany with his Oberlin organ class to visit twenty-five important historic instruments from the 16th through the 19th centuries. Later that month he will make his first concert tour in China.

James David Christie is represented exclusively in North America by Phillip Truckenbrod
Concert Artists, LLC. www.concertartists.com/artists/james-david-christie/

From left: Stephen Tharp, Jared Lamenzo, James Kennerley, James David Christie, Renée Anne Louprette, David Enlow

(photo: Donald Meineke)