Organist David Hurd

David Hurd is widely recognized as one of the foremost church musicians and concert organists in the United States, with a long list of awards, prizes, honors, and achievements, and immeasurable expertise in organ performance, improvisation, and composition. From 1976 until 2015, David Hurd was a faculty member at The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York City, first as Director of Chapel Music and later also as Professor of Church Music and Organist. For his work at General Theological Seminary and for his substantial contribution to church music, four other seminaries awarded him honorary doctorates. He is the composer of dozens of hymns, choral works, settings of the liturgy, and organ works published by a number of major houses. He was one of the major contributors of new hymnody and liturgical settings for the Episcopal Church’s Hymnal 1982 and his music is seen in hymnals and choir libraries in churches of all religious denominations. In 2010 he became the fifteenth recipient of The American Guild of Organists’ Distinguished Composer award. From 1998-2013 he was Music Director and Organist at Church of the Holy Apostles (Episcopal) in New York City. Dr. Hurd is now Organist/Choirmaster of the famed Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Times Square.

As a concert organist David Hurd enjoys instant recognition both at home and abroad. Since winning both first prizes (in performance and improvisation) of the 1977 International Congress of Organists, he has performed throughout North America and Europe, and has been a featured artist at numerous national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists. He was invited to perform at the Internationaal Orgelfestival Haarlem, during which he received the diploma for improvisation at the Stitchting Internationaal Orgelconcours.

He studied both at the Preparatory Division of the Juilliard School and at Manhattan's High School of Music and Art. Later he attended Oberlin College in Ohio, graduating with a music degree in 1971, and went on for further study at the University of North Carolina and, back in New York, at the Manhattan School of Music. His organ teachers have included Bronson Ragan, Garth Peacock, Arthur Poister, and Rudolph Kremer.

David Hurd is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC. 

ON THE PROGRAM:

Cantata 29 (Sinfonia, Chorus: Wir danken dir Gott) - Johann Sebastian Bach  

Fantasia on Wondrous Love (2016) - David Hurd

Four Spiritual Preludes (2001) - David Hurd 

    Oh, What a Beautiful City

    Go Down, Moses

    Were You There

    Deep River

Seconde Sonate pour le grand Orgue en Ré Majeur, Opus 50 - Alexandre Guilmant  

Te Deum Laudamus (1981)        David Hurd