Faculty Artist Recital: Dr. Greg Crowell, early keyboard instruments

Thursday, March 27, 2025
7:30 p.m.
Allendale Campus
Alumni, Community, Faculty, Staff, Students

Event Description (to be used on the calendar and any media coverage)
Gregory Crowell has appeared as organist, harpsichordist, clavichordist, lecturer, and conductor in Germany, Holland, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Canada, and the United States. He has performed in many international festivals and conventions, including the Boston Early Music Festival, Regional Conventions of the American Guild of Organists, National Conventions of the Organ Historical Society, the Saugatuck Chamber Music Festival, the Fontana Chamber Music Festival, the Boston Clavichord Society, the Westfield Center, and the International Clavichord Symposium (Magnano, Italy). Particularly noted for his performances of the keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach, Crowell has been a featured performer at the Weener (Germany) International Bach Series, the Grand Rapids Bach Festival, the Old West Organ Society (Boston) Bach Marathon, and the Valparaiso Bach Institute. In the spring of 2000, Dr. Crowell performed and lectured in the Bach Organ Festival held at St. Luke's in Tokyo, during which time he also served as visiting scholar at Rikkyo University in Tokyo. Crowell has spoken on interdisciplinary models of teaching music history at Oxford University as part of the Oxford Round Table. Recent appearances include solo recitals at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the National Music Museum, the Western Early Keyboard Association, Notre Dame University, and the Grassi Museum in Leipzig, Germany.

Crowell has served as a member of the jury of a number of prestigious organ competitions, including the Quimby, Fort Wayne, Strader, Rotman, and American Guild of Organists Improvisation competitions.

Gregory Crowell's performances have been featured on WCRB Boston, WGUC in Cincinnati, WFMT Chicago, Northwest German Radio, Belgian Public Radio, WBLU in Grand Rapids, WMUK in Kalamazoo, and NPM's Pipedreams. His compact disc recordings include live organ performances on the OHS label, and, with hornist Paul Austin, the critically acclaimed compact disc Moons and Ancestors: The Music of Robert Shechtman.

Crowell's solo performances have been described as "beautiful, flexible, expressive" (The Diapason), "full of panache and expression" (Ostfriesen Kurier), "reliable as a sunrise, steady as a rock" (The Grand Rapids Press), and "masterful" (North American Keyboard Society). The The Tracker praised him for "his stylish, lickety-split passagework [that] brought the program to a dazzling conclusion," and the Boston Herald noted "this listener cannot recall ever having heard better."

Crowell has also published widely on subjects related to early keyboard instruments and their repertoire in such periodicals as The Diapason, The American Organist, Harpsichord and Fortepiano, Clavichord International, The Tracker, and De Clavicordio. From 2004 to 2008, Crowell was the Director of Publications for the Organ Historical Society, in which capacity he served as editor of The Tracker, a quarterly scholarly journal dedicated to the historic pipe organ. From 2009 to 2024, Crowell served as the editor of Clavichord International, the only scholarly journal devoted entirely to the clavichord.

Dr. Crowell holds degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and the University of Cincinnati, and has studied further at the North German Organ Academy, Academia del Organo (Pistoia, Italy), and Musika Hamabostaldia (San Sebastian, Spain). Dr. Crowell has taught at the New England Conservatory, the University of Cincinnati, and Hope College. He is Senior Affiliate Professor of Music at Grand Valley State University, and Director of Music at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Dr. Crowell performs under the aegis of Independent Concert Artists.

Location Information

Sherman van Solkema Recital Hall

Download parking map for the Allendale Campus

Contact Information

Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance
(616) 331-3484

Share this event

This event was added to the calendar by Bridgett Vanderhoof (vandebri@gvsu.edu) on Monday, August 26, 2024 at 11:52 a.m.

Events