Presenting Aaron James
- Aug 8
- 2 min read
Toronto-based organist Aaron James visits Victoria to play two contrasting organ concerts to open the 2025 Pacific Baroque Festival, showcasing the richness of the beautiful instruments in the city. “Home” and “Abroad” will explore domestic and public organ practices respectively through the music of Baroque Germany.
[James'] recital concluded with a Muffat toccata played, as required, with dramatic flair and calm sensitivity. Throughout the recital, the little details that often plague organists, such as placement and control of ornaments, unobtrusive manual shifts, and timing of tempo and section changes…were masterfully handled.
– Organ Canada 2021
You can hear Muffat’s Toccata undecima on Wednesday night’s “Abroad” concert (February 19th), programmed to highlight the great organists and organs of 17th-century Europe. The Wolff organ and the space of Christ Church Cathedral provide an ideal instrument and setting for this program, as Aaron tours some of the brilliant South German music that inspired Helmuth Wolff to build this instrument.
The previous night, Tuesday, February 18th, Aaron will open the festival with an intimate concert titled “Home.” In the privacy of a comfortable music room, Baroque keyboard players could explore musical ideas that were too intimate—or too irreverent—for a formal public setting. This program explores the capabilities of the Brombaugh chamber organ at St Barnabas Church to capture the sounds of home: laughter and tears, songs and dances, and even the sounds of a few domestic animals.
Aaron James is the Director of Music at the Toronto Oratory of St Philip Neri, and a Sessional Lecturer in organ at the University of Toronto. An alumnus of the Eastman School of Music, he holds both a PhD degree in musicology and a DMA degree in organ, along with the Performer’s Certificate in organ. He was the 2011 winner of the National Organ Playing Competition of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, and has won numerous other prizes for his organ playing, including first prizes in the Florence and Stanley Osborne Organ Competition and the Howard Fairclough Organ Competition.
In the 2024-25 season Aaron is performing the complete works of J. S. Bach in a series of sixteen recitals on the newly restored Kney/Gober organ of Holy Family Church: www.oratory-toronto.org/bach .
Comments