by Pete Rosenbery
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Acclaimed international concert organist and composer Chelsea Chen will perform at Southern Illinois University Carbondale in September for the Marianne Webb and David N. Bateman Distinguished Organ Recital Series.
International concert organist and composer Chelsea Chen will perform a free concert for the Marianne Webb and David N. Bateman Distinguished Organ Recital Series Sept. 20 at SIU Carbondale’s Shryock Auditorium. (Photo credit: Darius Liktorius.)
The SIU School of Music performance is at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 20 in Shryock Auditorium, home of the Marianne Webb Pipe Organ. The concert is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.
This is the 26th concert in the endowed series, established in 1990 by Webb and Bateman, both former SIU faculty members, “to present outstanding, well-established concert organists in recital” for Southern Illinois residents, said Lynn Trapp — a concert organist and one of Webb’s former students — who has been the series’ principal artistic director since its inception.
Chen’s program will include works by French composers Jehan Alain, Claude Debussy, Maurice Duruflé and Louis Vierne; German composer Johann Sebastian Bach, American composer Powell Weaver and Chen’s own creations.
Chen studied at The Julliard School in New York, where she received bachelor’s and master’s degrees and won the John Erskine Prize for academic and artistic achievement After returning from Taiwan on a Fulbright Scholarship, Chen studied at Yale University and earned an artist diploma.
Chen has recorded several CDs, including “Live at Heinz Chapel” and “Reveries,” and her playing has aired on CNN.com, “Pipedreams” from American Public Media, Hawaii Public Radio and Taiwan’s Good News Radio. She has also performed at such venues as Singapore’s Esplanade with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong’s Cultural Centre, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center and Los Angeles’ Disney Hall.
Chen is the artist-in-residence at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Manhattan.
Distinctive series, distinctive organ
Webb came to SIU Carbondale in 1965 as a music faculty member teaching organ and piano and serving as the university organist. Under her direction, the School of Music initiated an annual organ festival, the first of its kind in the country.
She led an effort to renovate Shryock Auditorium, including the installation of a new 3,312-pipe, 3-manual, 58-rank Reuter pipe organ that she designed. The organ was named in her honor in 2001, when she retired as professor emerita, though she continued to serve as visiting professor and distinguished university organist for 11 years after, passing away in 2013.
Bateman is a management professor emeritus for the College of Business and Analytics. He retired in 1995.
Webb also established the Southern Illinois chapter of the American Guild of Organists, which hosts one or two nationally or internationally known concert organists each year. The chapter covers Southern Illinois, southeast Missouri and western Kentucky.
“She would be very pleased to know that the Distinguished Organ Recital Series has inspired the chapter to continue bringing fine artists to Southern Illinois,” Trapp said.