Acclaimed for his virtuosity and imaginative programming, JACOB BENDA has been featured as a solo recitalist at universities, festivals, and cathedrals throughout the world. Some highlights of the 2024-25 season include performances with the Minnesota Orchestra under the baton of Thomas Søndergård, the University of St. Thomas Festival Orchestra with conductor Matthew George, the organ dedication recital at the Boğaziçi Üniversitesi in Istanbul, Turkey, a featured artist recital for the 2025 Church Music Association of America Annual Colloquium, and a masterclass & solo recital at Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans. This season he will perform a wide variety of masterworks and new music including a transcription of The Carnival of the Animals, Rachel Laurin’s epic Concerto for Organ, Timpani and Strings in D, Stephen Paulus’ Baronian Suite, a scintillating piece for pedal solo entitled Variations on a Theme of Paganini, to name a few.

 

Appointed in February 2022 as the Organ Area Professor and Director of Sacred Music, Liturgy & Sacred Arts at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Benda is a published author, editor, and organ consultant. Former Dean of the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, he serves as the President of the Ruth and Clarence Mader Memorial Scholarship Fund based in Los Angeles. In 2015, he earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Louisiana State University under the mentorship of Professor Herndon Spillman, protégé of Maurice Duruflé.

 

Enthusiastic about music from all eras, Dr. Benda has a special affinity for new music and has premiered works by Pamela Decker, James Sclater, Gary Bachlund, and James Callahan. The world-premiere performance of Organ Concerto No. 2 by James Callahan, with the composer at the podium, was broadcast in its entirety on American Public Media’s Pipedreams hosted by Michael Barone – a radio program that has featured Jacob on over ten different episodes. Several prominent composers have dedicated compositions to him including, Passacaglia and Dance Variations by Pamela Decker, Souevenir for J. by Krzysztof Grzeszczak, and Chromatic Rondo and Fugue in C minor by Gary Bachlund. A champion of organ and choral music by American composer Clarence Mader, his landmark recording, Music at Midnight, A Tonal Palette, Organ Music by Clarence Mader, (Centaur Label, CRC 3361), was applauded by the American Record Guide as "an important picture of American organ art in the 20th century...talented young American organist Jacob Benda performs with confident rhythmic stability and polished technical assurance."

 

Highlights from past seasons include solo performances and lectures at Yale University, the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków, Poland, the University of Arizona, the University of North Texas, Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, the 2023 American Guild of Organists North Central Regional Convention, the 2018 East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, the opening gala performance for the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Guild of Organists 2019-20 season, Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans, Louisiana, St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Jackson, Mississippi, the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Plymouth Congregational Church in Seattle, Washington, and several organ dedication concerts throughout the United States and Poland.