Judges

Nicole Keller

Nicole Keller is in demand as a concert artist, adjudicator, and clinician.  She has concertized in the States and abroad in venues such as St. Patrick Cathedral, New York; Cathédrale Notre-Dame, Paris; Dom St. Stephan, Passau; St. Patrick Cathedral, Armagh, Northern Ireland; and The Kazakh National University for the Arts, Astana, Kazakhstan.  She specializes in eclectic programs suited to instrument and audience with a desire to expand the listener’s horizons, pairing familiar sounds and genres with less familiar ones.

Ms. Keller’s performances with orchestras includes concertos, works for small chamber orchestra, and large works involving organ, harpsichord, and piano.  She has extensive experience as a chamber musician and as a continuo player, including many performances of Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions, the Christmas Oratorio, and the Mass in B minor in addition to a host of cantatas and baroque chamber music.

As a teacher, Ms. Keller strives to foster and model a commitment to excellence in performance, scholarship and self-growth as students deepen their love of music and their instrument. Her students have been accepted into and attended prestigious graduate schools throughout the country and enjoy successful musical careers in a variety of settings. She was recently appointed to the faculty of the School of Music, Theatre and Dance at the University of Michigan and is also Visiting Instructor of Organ at the Interlochen Arts Academy.

Ms. Keller’s extensive church music experience includes work in with volunteer and professional choirs and instrumental ensembles devoted to the highest level of music for worship.  She has created organ and choral scholar programs at small and mid size parishes, developed successful children’s choir programs, and has led choirs on tour in the states and abroad including choral residencies at Bristol Cathedral, U.K. and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland.

Ms. Keller received the Performer’s Certificate and the Master of Music Degree in Organ Performance and Literature at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York under the tutelage of David Higgs.  While at Eastman, she studied continuo with Arthur Haas and improvisation with Gerre Hancock.  She received the Bachelor of Music Degree in Piano Performance from the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music in Berea, Ohio, where she studied piano with George Cherry and Jean Stell and organ with Margaret Scharf.

Anne Laver

Described by Fanfare magazine as a “complete musician, totally adept and utterly stylish in everything she plays,” Anne Laver maintains an active career as concert organist, scholar, and pedagogue. She has given organ concerts in Europe, Scandinavia, Africa and across the United States and has been a featured recitalist at conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, and the Göteborg International Organ Academy (Sweden). In 2010, she was awarded second prize in the AGO National Young Artist Competition in Organ Performance (NYACOP). Anne’s debut recording, “Reflections of Light” (Loft, 2019) received favorable reviews and has been aired on nationally syndicated radio programs, including WXXI FM’s With Heart and Voice and American Public Media’s Pipedreams.

Anne is a versatile musician, equally at home on antique and modern organs. Her programs are tailored to the specific organ at hand and center around themes ranging from the art of variation in seventeenth-century Germany, to music of women composers, to organ music with live dance. An advocate for new music and diversifying the organ repertoire, Anne has worked with composer Natalie Draper to offer programs for composers who want to write for the organ, and has given world premieres of works by Draper, Eric Heumann, Jordan Alexander Key, and Ivan Božičević.

Anne is passionate about advocacy for the organ and the encouragement of young organists. In her appointment as Associate Professor of Organ and University Organist at Syracuse University’s Setnor School of Music, she helps educate the next generation of organists and church musicians. She also serves as artistic director for the Malmgren Concert Series at Hendricks Chapel, coordinates the annual Arthur Poister Competition in Organ Playing, and hosts educational programs for youth in collaboration with local chapters of the American Guild of Organists. Anne has taught and led outreach programs at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, most recently serving as Visiting Professor of Organ from 2020-2022. She has also chaired national committees for the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, and the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboards.

As a scholar, Anne’s research interests focus on organ music at the nineteenth and twentieth century world’s fairs. Her articles have been published in the Journal for the Society of American Music, The American Organist, and Vox Humana. She is also a contributor and expert advisor for a soon-to-be-released open access online organ encyclopedia edited by Kimberly Marshall and Alexander Meszler. She has been able to involve student research assistants in her scholarship with the help of Syracuse University’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement.

Anne Laver studied organ with Mark Steinbach as an undergraduate student at Brown University and spent a year in The Netherlands studying with Jacques van Oortmerssen at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. While pursuing masters and doctoral degrees at the Eastman School of Music, she studied with Hans Davidsson, William Porter, and David Higgs.

Daryl Robinson

Daryl Robinson has earned international acclaim from critics and audiences alike, being described as an artist with “… a driving muscular poetry underpinned by nimble technique and nuanced sense of style …” (Choir and Organ) and possessing “… flawless technique and rhythmic verve …” (The American Organist).  Winner of both First Prize and Audience Prize in the 2012 American Guild of Organists National Competition in Organ Performance, Mr. Robinson currently serves as Associate Professor of Organ and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston and is represented by Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc. 

Notable recital venues include the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Shanghai Oriental Art Center, and the Spreckels Organ Pavilion and Mr. Robinson has also been a featured artist at national and regional conventions of the Organ Historical Society and the American Guild of Organists.  Multiple critically-acclaimed commercial discs are available; these include the first commercial recording of the organ at Walt Disney Concert Hall, American Fantasia, and his debut solo album, Sempre Organo, both of which have garnered rave reviews internationally.  His most recent recording, A Love So Fierce: The Complete Organ Music of David Ashley White, was the first commercial recording of the organ at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston, where he served as Cathedral Organist from 2017-2023.

Jesse Eschbach

Jesse Eschbach is the past chair of the division of keyboard studies for the College of Music and has served as a faculty member since 1986. Eschbach holds a doctorate of musical arts degree from the University of Michigan where he was a student of Robert Glasgow. His bachelor’s and master’s degrees are from Indiana University where he was a student of Oswald Ragatz. Eschbach studied early French music and the works of Jehan Alain in the class of Marie-Claire Alain at the Conservatoire de Rueil-Malmaison. During this time, he was awarded the Prix d’Excellence and the Prix de Virtuosité by unanimous jury. Upon completion of his doctorate, he returned to France to accept the post of organist and choirmaster at St. Michael’s English Church in Paris. While there, he studied organ with Marie-Madeleine Duruflé and piano with Christiane Devos.

He has appeared as a recitalist and lecturer throughout Europe and the United States. His recording of Franck and Guilmant was released on the Centaur label. With the organ builder Gene Bedient, he co-founded and directed the Summer Institute for French Organ Studies for a twenty-year period.

Formerly under management with Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, focal dystonia in the right hand destroyed a promising concert career. Since that diagnosis, Eschbach has focused on pedagogy and research. In 2003, his book detailing the original stop lists of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was published by the Peter Ewers Verlag in Germany and has become a fundamental source for French symphonic organ research.

Eschbach maintains the largest class of organ performance majors in Texas and beyond.  His students often dominate the Bill Hall Organ Competition in San Antonio, Texas. As an exponent of historical keyboard practices, Eschbach embraces the best of traditional American pedagogy coupled with lively pursuits of information and practices that enliven all periods and national styles.   

Kimberly Marshall

Kimberly Marshall is known worldwide for her compelling programs and presentations of organ music. She is an accomplished teacher, having held positions at Stanford University and the Royal Academy of Music, London. Winner of the St. Albans International Organ Playing Competition in 1985, she has been a recitalist, workshop leader and adjudicator at 9 National Conventions of the American Guild of Organists.  From 1996-2000, she served as a project leader for the Göteborg Organ Research Center (GOArt) in Sweden. She currently holds the Patricia and Leonard Gldman Endowed Professorship in Organ at Arizona State University.

Marshall has performed throughout Europe, including concerts in London’s Royal Festival Hall and St. Paul’s Cathedral; King’s College, Cambridge; Norte-Dame Cathedral, Paris; and Chartres Cathedral. She has also performed on many historical organs, such as the Couperin organ in Paris and the Gothic organ in Sion, Switzerland. Her compact disc recordings feature music of the Italian and Spanish Renaissance, French Classical and Romantic periods, and works by J. S. Bach. Marshall’s expertise in medieval music is reflected in her recording, Gothic Pipes, as well as through her articles for the Grove Dictionary of Music and the Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. To increase awareness of early repertoire, she has published anthologies of late-medieval and Renaissance organ music.

Kimberly Marshall is an experienced adjudicator, having served on the juries of the National AGO competition (2008), the Sweelinck competition (Amsterdam, 2010) and the Alkmaar (Netherlands) Schnitger Competition (2015).  She serves on the Board for Rosie’s House, a pioneering music charity for children. She is the advisor on organs for the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) in Phoenix and has made videos in Mexico, France and Italy for their exhibits.

Stephen Price

STEPHEN C. PRICE recently joined the music faculty at the University of Washington (Seattle) as the inaugural Paul B. Fritts Faculty Fellow and Artist-in-Residence in organ performance beginning in September 2023. Dr. Price previously held the position of Assistant Teaching Professor in music (organ) at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. In his previous post, he maintained an organ studio including undergraduate and graduate students, and also taught church music, music history, and music theory courses. His former organ students have obtained church positions throughout the United States and are active within the profession. Dr. Price is a native of Buffalo, New York. He served as Assistant Minister of Music at Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church and Organ Scholar during his senior year of high school at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, where he studied with Andrew Scanlon. Subsequently, he attended Western Connecticut State University, under the direction of Stephen Roberts, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree and served as Organ Scholar at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on the Green in Norwalk, Connecticut, serving under Director of Music, Vince Edwards. Following his undergraduate career, Dr. Price received a Fulbright Scholarship to Toulouse, France, where he studied “Historical and Modern” performance practices of French Organ Music under the guidance of Michel Bouvard and Jan Willem Jansen. Dr. Price then attended the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, receiving the Master of Music and Doctor of Music degrees.

During his graduate studies, Dr. Price competed and garnered awards in several international competitions, including the Franz Schmidt Organ Competition (Austria), André Marchal Organ Competition (France), and the Canadian International Organ Competition (Montreal). While at Indiana University, he studied under the mentorship of Dr. Janette Fishell. After completing his coursework at Indiana University, Dr. Price accepted a full-time position as Associate Director of Music and Organist at First United Methodist Church, San Diego, California, serving from 2015-17. In 2019, Dr. Price was a performer and served on the jury for the Regional Competition for Young Organists at the Northeast Regional American Guild of Organists Convention in Buffalo, New York. Dr. Price presented for the OrganFest 2020 virtual PipeTalk series titled “A Discussion for New Organ Teachers: Where to Start and How to Proceed?” In the fall of 2020, Dr. Price participated in a webinar series on teaching, presenting the topic “Building an Organist Artistry through Literature Choices,” sponsored by the AGO’s committee on continuing professional education. In addition to his teaching duties at Ball State, Dr. Price served as the coordinator for the Sursa American Organ Competition for High School and Pre-Professional organists hosted at Ball State. He also served on the Organ Historical Society’s Advisory Membership Committee and the American Guild of Organists Education Committee. Upon invitation, Dr. Price served as an adjudicator for the First Presbyterian National Organ Playing Competition (Fort Wayne, IN); and the Strader Organ Scholarship Competition (University of Cincinnati). While residing in Indiana, Dr. Price served at Plainfield United Methodist (Plainfield, IN), as choir director and organist; Holy Trinity Lutheran ELCA (New Castle, IN), and as Organist at High Street United Methodist Church, Muncie, Indiana, where he initiated the church’s first organ scholar position to inspire and train future church musicians in East Central Indiana. Recent appearances include the 2022 Organ Historical Society Convention (Columbus, OH); St. Ita’s Roman Catholic Church (Chicago); Zion Lutheran Church (Fort Wayne, IN); St. John the Divine (New York City); and First Presbyterian Church (Buffalo, NY). Additionally, Michael Barone has featured recordings and live performances on the Pipedreams Broadcast on NPR. Dr. Price’s debut album, Paris Impact Organ Suites, has been released on the Raven recording label and is available for purchase at RavenCD.com. Stephen Price is represented by Seven Eight Artists.