Duke University Organist to Perform Solo Recital at Brevard College’s Porter Center for Performing Arts

Robert Parkins, university organist and professor of the practice of music at Duke University, will perform a solo recital on the Kirkpatrick-Coleman Pipe Organ at Brevard College’s Porter Center for Performing Arts on Sunday, February 22.

The 3 p.m. performance will include the works of Bach, Brahms and Mendelssohn, among others. Parkins will be playing the majestic Kirkpatrick-Coleman Organ, the visual centerpiece of the Porter Center’s Scott Concert Hall. The organ was designed and crafted by master American organ builder Daniel J. Jaeckel, thanks to a $1.1 million gift from Mr. and Mrs. Robert D. Coleman Jr. of Brevard. Installed in the summer of 2003, the tracker (mechanical key) organ features three manual divisions, 69 ranks and 3,539 pipes.

Parkins has performed throughout the United States, in Central America and in Europe. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati College–Conservatory of Music and the Yale University School of Music, he studied with Gerre Hancock, Charles Krigbaum, Michael Schneider and Ralph Kirkpatrick. As a Fulbright scholar, Parkins pursued further study with Anton Heiller in Vienna.

Parkin’s organ and harpsichord recordings have been released under the Calcante, Gothic, Musical Heritage Society and Naxos labels. His Naxos compact disc recordings include Early Iberian Organ Music and Brahms: Complete Organ Works, both recorded on the Duke Chapel’s Flentrop organ. German Romantic Organ Music (Gothic Records) features both the Flentrop and the Æolian organs. Iberian and South German Organ Music (Calcante) was the first commercial recording of the new Brombaugh meantone organ. Parkins has since released another recording of the Brombaugh, Organ Music of Frescobaldi (Calcante).

Tickets to Parkin’s performance are $25, $20 and $10 for students. Tickets may be purchased from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Porter Center Box Office. For more information on tickets, please contact the Porter Center Box Office at 884-8330.