Acclaimed organist Laube to perform weekend of concerts

Organist Nathan Laube, one of the most sought-after young organists on the concert touring circuit, returns to UB and Buffalo for a unique weekend of organ music April 21 and April 23.

The UB Department of Music is partnering with the Buffalo Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and St. Joseph Cathedral, with additional support from the Buffalo Niagara Friends of Music, for these events.

Laube will perform on UB’s Fisk Organ at 7:30 p.m. April 21 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus. That concert will be followed by a performance at 4 p.m. April 23 at St. Joseph’s Cathedral, 50 Franklin St., Buffalo.

Tickets for the UB concert are $15 for the general public and $10 for UB faculty/staff/alumni, seniors and non-UB students. UB students are free with ID. Tickets may be purchased in person at the Center for the Arts box office, online at Tickets.com or an hour before concert time at the Slee Hall box office.

No ticket is required for the program at St. Joseph Cathedral, although a goodwill offering is encouraged.

Laube’s programs for the concerts are unique to the personality of the two concert organs and the venues:

At Lippes Concert Hall, Laube will perform:

Charles-Marie Widor: Symphonie pour Grand Orgue, Op. 42, No. 5 Allegro vivace

Juan Bautista José Cabanilles: Corrente Italiana

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Prelude in G-minor, Op. 28, No. 5 (trans. Gottfried Federlein)

Johann Sebastian Bach: Passacaglia, BWV 582

Maurice Duruflé:  Suite pour Orgue, Op. 5

The St. Joseph Cathedral program:

Charles-Marie Widor: Symphonie pour Grand Orgue, Op. 42, No. 6 Allegro

Jean Jules Aimable Roger-Ducasse: Pastorale pour Orgue

Healey Willan: Introduction, Passacaglia, and Fugue

Franz Liszt: Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses, S. 173, No. 7 (1849) (trans. Laube) Funérailles (D’Après Lamartine)

Richard Wagner: Overture to "Tannhauser " (trans. S.P. Warren, E.H. Lemare, D. Fuller and Laube)

Considered among the organ world’s elite performers, Laube has toured extensively, performing at major venues spanning four continents. Among them are the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Berlin Philharmonie, Berlin Cathedral, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Verizon Hall in Philadelphia and the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

His recording of the Stephen Paulus Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra with the Nashville Symphony was awarded a Grammy for Best Classical Compendium in 2016.

Laube joined the faculty of The Eastman School of Music in Rochester in 2013 as an assistant professor of organ. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, he received a master’s degree in organ performance from the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart, Germany.

A recipient of a Fulbright Grant, Laube spent the 2010-11 academic year studying at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Toulouse, where he earned Prix de Spécialisé with the mention “Très Bien” and “Féliciations du Jury” — the two top honors — in addition to the Prix François Vidal from the city of Toulouse.