Jan Kraybill: Press/Reviews

"The Big 12:  Top Moments in KC Performing Arts for 2011"

This year will go down in history as a milestone in Kansas City's performing arts life, as the opening of the Kauffman Center has spurred all of our local arts groups to new heights.  Here are a few of my favorite moments of the year, listed in chronological order ....

Bachathon, sponsored by The Kansas City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. If you’re going to devote a whole afternoon to the music of one composer, it might as well be the greatest who ever lived. The AGO has been hosting this for 32 years (!), and it’s almost always a highlight of the concert season. Especially memorable this year was Jan Kraybill’s bracing performance of the “St. Anne” Fugue, one of the most amazing displays of virtuosic musicianship I have heard in Kansas City.

"Magical Musical Mix"

Take a series of plainchant holiday tunes, perform them as they have been interpreted by composers over the ages (progressing from older to newer), and spice with a few interspersed pieces of Christmas-themed organ music by one of Kansas City’s supreme organists. Mix well and serve to an enthusiastic audience. The Fine Arts Chorale and Jan Kraybill did just that with their annual holiday concert.

Terri Teal of the Fine Arts Chorale has this recipe honed, and used it with brilliant effect in the December 10 concert of the Chorale, called “Celebrate the Holidays with Jan Kraybill.” Featuring Kraybill, the fine organist who was profiled in the last issue of KCMetropolis.org, the concert was one of the most thoroughly enjoyable holiday outings in this reviewer’s experience. The concert successfully avoided the saccharine sweetness of all too many Christmas season outings which turn into familiar songfests and which underutilize the more sophisticated talents of their performers.

In other words, this was one holiday concert that didn’t compromise the ensemble’s standards, but displayed a brilliant and sensitive musicality, presented rarely heard but transcendently beautiful selections, and still offered enough of a toe-tapping good time to please any audience member.

Kraybill, at the fine Visitation Church pipe organ, played a series of organ works, mostly of the theme and variations type, by composers ranging from Bach to Brahms to contemporary composer Craig Phillips. Then, between the organ selections, Teal’s 23-voiced unaccompanied vocal ensemble performed a series of interrelated numbers, each series based upon a popular Christmas music tune, exploring the theme as arranged by composers whose birth dates ranged from 1550 to 1972.

...

The program’s second half began with a splendid performance by Kraybill of Bach’s canonic variations on “Von Himmel Hoch,” and then with the Chorale’s ancient-to-modern progression of arrangements based on “Lo, How a Rose.”

...

Jan Kraybill, as always, was superb at the organ and confirmed her status as one of the jewels of the Kansas City music scene.

...

Amidst the hymnfests and perhaps overly done repetitions of familiar works which are ever present during the Christmas season, this concert represented one of the most elegant and carefully prepared programs this reviewer has heard. Hats off to Teal, Kraybill, and the dedicated members of the Fine Arts Chorale.

... one of this area's finest organists ...

Movers, Shakers, Stalwarts: Jan Kraybill "... one of Kansas City's leading organists."  (see entire article here)

"Pipes and Voices" at Community of Christ

The choir is accompanied by the outstanding Jan Kraybill playing the Temple's glorious Casavant organ.

The 2011–12 season launches in a few short weeks and with it some of the most exciting events ever to grace the stages of Kansas City. 2010–11 was no slouch though with many ensembles and artists leaving lasting impressions.  Here are Editor-in-Chief Lee Hartman’s favorites of 2010–11.

1.      Fine Arts Chorale with Jan Kraybill: Holiday Concert  A brainy and beautiful celebration, Terri Teal’s Fine Arts Chorale with organist Jan Kraybill showcased there is no need to pander or water down your product just because it’s the holidays. Kraybill’s performance of Marcel Dupré’s Variations sur un Noël, Op. 20 was the crown jewel of the concert and the season. (December 2010)

I was especially impressed with the organ recitals played by the Region VI Councillor, Dr. Jan Kraybill, and a young American organist, Christopher Houlihan. (after recital for AGO regional convention, June 21, 2011)

Bachathon was a quite a treat this year. The annual five-hour marathon of the master’s works, sponsored by the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists, included fine performances by local organists, choirs and vocal soloists. ... The best was saved for last: Jan Kraybill demonstrated her extraordinary virtuosity at the keyboard in four chorales and, most famously, the “St. Anne” Fugue. She began the latter at a tempo that seemed downright suicidal, but managed to hack through the thickets of one of Bach’s most complex works with nary a hitch. Her remarkable feat brought the audience to its collective feet.

Pre-Super Bowl Concert

Tonight in Texas it might be Super Bowl XLV, but for lovers of big, powerful organ music, this afternoon in Independence it is Super Bowl XII. 

... For her Super Bowl recitals, Kraybill ... always performs rousing works designed to get the blood flowing.  This year she's chosen an especially dramatic program of music ... the thrilling centerpiece is Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition."  Hearing "The Great Gate of Kiev" on the auditorium's mighty organ could very well make the big game seem anticlimactic.

Super Bowl Sunday Tradition Continues for Church Organist

... even those who are less drawn to the pipe organ will come away from Kraybill's recitals as fans of the instrument.  "The music is always what we call listener-friendly.  There are pieces that will challenge the listener; but you can be darned certain that there will be pieces that he or she will like. ... Overall, that same person will like the whole program.  With Jan's programming, there is always something interesting, and you can be sure that it will be well-played."  (Quoting John Schaefer)

Kraybill’s outstanding playing on the superb Community of Christ Casavant organ is always a treat for the senses.

A Holiday Sample of Everything

Music of the season comes in all shapes and sizes.  The Kansas City Symphony Chamber Players presented a program ... that had something for everyone Friday at Visitation Church.

... Organist Jan Kraybill played [Handel's Organ Concerto in F, Op. 4, No. 4] with taste and elegance, employing well-chosen registrations alternating flute-like and reedy stops.  In addition, she deftly negotiated Handel's rapid and technically challenging passages.

Patchwork holiday re-imagined

December is a time when most musical organizations take a breather and focus on lighter holiday fare. The Fine Arts Chorale bucked that trend with best choral programming I have had the good fortune to hear in the past couple of years. The concept was simple: take a multi-versed melody or chant, find that same tune in other works, shift seamlessly between composers and across time periods on different verses, and end with a coda performed on the organ. Repeat this process four times. In doing so, the Fine Arts Chorale, under the capable direction of Terri Teal with organist Janet Kraybill, treated the robust audience for Saturday night’s performance at Grace and Holy Trinity to a splendid meta-suite of works based on “Lo, How a rose,” “Conditor alme siderum,” “Divinum mysterium,” and “In dulci jubilo.”

... Kraybill’s codas were impeccable from the melting half-steps in Brahms’ Op. 122, No. 8, to the tasteful tremulant in Craig Phillips’ harmonization of “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” to the tongue-in-cheek dissonances of Norman Dello Joio’s “In dulci jubilo.”

After the intermission Kraybill wowed once again with Marcel Dupré’s Variations sur un Noël, Op. 20. The set of ten variations on the French carol “Noël nouvelet” left me shaking my head at Kraybill’s sheer audacity and masterful performance. This was a thorny, challenging work for audience and performer alike and I treasured every nuance-soaked second, especially those in the fourth, fifth, and tenth variations. The lasting, thunderous, whooping applause was deserved.

... one of the region's finest organists.

"She is gifted with her ability to express ideas and opinions; plus, she has a very warm, outgoing personality.  I think for any performer, they have to have a personality that wants to reach out to audiences of people; there has to be this warm, receptive attitude.  Every gifted performer I've known has been that way.  Instead of communicating with words, they are communicating with music.  She certainly has that skill."  (quoting John Obetz)

...Jan Kraybill, the superb Community of Christ organist...

Kraybill combines artistry and passion in organ's 50th anniversary recital

On Friday, November 6, [2009,] about 1,000 people made the pilgrimage to the Community of Christ Auditorium in Independence to hear Principal Organist and Director of Music Jan Kraybill perform a recital that was 50 years in the making - and well worth the wait. ... One of them was overheard to comment that Kraybill gave an even more exciting and perfect performance than that of the great Catharine Crozier. ... Repeating the same concert program as Crozier 50 years ago, Kraybill delivered a compelling interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue, BWV 582. ... well-paced deliberation ... excellent variety in tonal timbre and dynamic contrast ... warm energy ... gripping artistry ... It brought down the house. ... So many organists are technically proficient. Kraybill hurdled the technical demands seemingly effortlessly and also expressed [Reubke's Sonata on the 94th Psalm's] complex range of musical nuance with brilliant command. ... The program ended on a high note with the same virtuosic encore piece that Crozier presented ... the Prelude and Fugue in G minor, Op. 7, No. 3, by Marcel Dupré. ... Bravo! to Dr. Kraybill, who not only delivered an artistically stellar interpretation, but who also executed its double pedal tones flawlessly ... The audience rewarded the success of her performance with an immediate standing ovation.

SUPER STAR – SUPER SONICS

Over 300 people were present to hear Jan Kraybill’s 10th annual Super Bowl Sunday organ recital at the Community of Christ Auditorium on February 1st. Dr. Kraybill is a superb organist technically and musically; her programming is extraordinarily imaginative ... She began her recital with the number one requested work, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. She made the work a fresh and exciting experience by playing with considerable propulsion and by making use of the organ’s many divisions in antiphony. Marcel Dupre’s Prelude and Fugue in G Minor was the work requested by many organists; especially impressive was the pedal work, including perfectly executed four voice chords.  As with all that she did, her playing was effortless. The Auditorium had a variety of television cameras around the room, so that it was possible to watch the playing of the feet, the manual work from overhead, and, especially, head shots of Dr. Kraybill showing her having a grand time!

Review of CD: Two by 2: Two Organ Symphonies on Two Magnificent Organs.

Two of the Midwest’s largest and best-known pipe organs are located ... at Community of Christ International Headquarters in Independence, MO.  ...  This is Kraybill’s first solo organ recording in which she firmly establishes herself as one of this country’s up-and-coming organists. ...

... With so many commercial recordings of the Widor Fifth Symphony available, the majority of which were recorded in France on French organs, one might ask what Kraybill’s recording brings to the table that help it distinguish itself. The short answer is--it brings everything. All aspects of Kraybill’s Widor performance are just right--musical playing, well-chosen tempi, adherence to the composer’s specified registration indications, fine organ well-suited to the music, and reverberant acoustic. This reviewer’s favorite moment in the entire recording is the recapitulation section of the first movement, where the full organ resources of the Casavant are nothing short of stunning, and combined with Kraybill’s musicianship and drive, leave indelible impressions of majesty and awe that the listener will not soon forget. The other movements, including the famous Toccata all receive secure, assured performances that highlight Kraybill’s musical playing and some beautiful sounds on the Casavant, such as a lovely Hautbois, a soaring Flûte harmonique, lush strings, a warm panalopy of fonds d’orgue, and a fiery, full Swell division. ...

Kraybill has elected to record on the Auditorium organ what perhaps many consider is the most monumental organ work ever written by an American composer--Leo Sowerby’s Symphony in G Major. ... only six organists, including Kraybill, have ever recorded the complete Symphony in G Major since its conception during the years 1930-31 ...  The musicality and drive that Kraybill exhibits in the Widor continue in abundance in her reading of the Sowerby Symphony. She traverses the expansive first movement with ease and élan, building to a powerful, scintillating climax and then easing gently to the concluding measures, which showcase Aeolian-Skinner signature strings with the 32’ Pedal Principal providing gentle undergirth. The late professor Robert Rayfield of Indiana University, a former Sowerby student, wryly suggested the Symphony’s second movement, Fast and Sinister, is fast for the listener and sinister for the performer. Kraybill navigates it with acrobatic assurance, maintaining an exciting tempo and firm pacing throughout. ... Kraybill opens the concluding Passacaglia with quiet conviction, building the drama and excitement of this large passacaglia to its monumental conclusion using the Auditorium organ’s full resources with creativity and good taste.

... This reviewer highly recommends this recording ... [It] provides the listener with musical, introspective, and exciting performances on two exceptional organs. One can only hope that Kraybill’s future recording projects will be as successful as this one as she continues to share her conviction and love of the organ and its literature so successfully and convincingly.

... For Jan, organ music should be accessible to everyone. The Super Bowl Sunday concerts, as well as the regular half-hour demonstration recitals offered by staff organists and the guest-artist concerts provide a way of connecting with old and young, musicians and non-musicians, and members of both the church and the fine arts communities.

The contemporary Wayzata Community Church (UCC) was the venue for Jan Kraybill’s stunning recital ...  The program comprised three works, the Bach partita, Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig, BWV 768; selections from Vierne’s Pièces de Fantaisie, Opus 51; and, the second and third movements from Sowerby’s Symphony in G. Kraybill’s enthusiastic Bach playing had clarity not obscured by the odd registrations or tempos often heard on such large instruments in lesser hands. ... each [variation] had a transparency and sparkle that spoke to her global vision of the set without ever letting virtuosity overshadow musicality. ... Kraybill further demonstrated her mastery of this music (and instrument) in the wide range of dynamics [in the Vierne] ... a very accessible performance of the Sowerby Symphony in G. The frantic Fast & Sinister (II) was that and more! Kraybill’s virtuosic pedal work was on display in both this and the closing Passacaglia. Her sensitive registrations contributed to the atmospheric and organic character of this rarely-performed piece. Kraybill’s recent recording of this piece (with Widor’s Symphony No. 5) is an important addition to the limited list of available complete recordings (including William Whitehead’s and Catharine Crozier’s).

... Jan Kraybill, as principal organist and director of music for Community of Christ, performed at the American Guild of Organists National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in June. This biennial convention features the world's finest organists in recitals. John Obetz, organist emeritus for Community of Christ, was in attendance. "Without a doubt the performance was magical," Obetz said. "It [playing in a national convention recital] is a pinnacle moment for any organist."