A
native Iowan, Jeffrey Brillhart has served as Director of Music and Fine
Arts at the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church since January 1983. He has an
impressive background of study, positions and achievement, begun first at
age 5 with piano lessons and at age 11 with his first position as a church
organist.
Jeffrey's responsibilities at
Bryn Mawr Church include directing the Senior
Choir and Bryn Mawr
Chamber Singers; oversight of the Vespers
Series; oversight of all children and youth choirs; the West
Philadelphia Children's Choir, and the church's arts outreach and visual
arts ministries. He is the church's principal organist and carilloneur..
In May 2005, he was appointed
Lecturer in
Organ Improvisation at Yale University. In 1994 he was first place
prize winner in the American
Guild of Organists National Competition in Organ Improvisation. Since that time, his recital tours have taken him throughout America, with engagements in San Diego, Seattle, Birmingham, Waco, Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York City, Iowa City, Des Moines, Worcester, and throughout the eastern seaboard. In May 2006, heperformed with the Pittsburgh Symphony in one of the inaugural concerts of the new Dobson Organ in Kimmel Center. In July 2006, he was the director of the Adult and Chamber Choirs at the Presbyterian Association of Musician's Westminster Conference. In 2008, he took a 6-month sabbatical during which he studied improvisation with SophieVéronique Cauchefer-Choplin and Tomas A. Nowak. He also authored "Breaking Free", an organ improvisation textbook (for more information, e-mail jeffrey398@aol.com). He will teach from "Breaking Free" at Westminster Choir College, June 22-26, 2009.
He has presented master
classes at the Curtis Institute of Music, University of Iowa, Baylor
University, the Eastman School of Music, Westminster Choir College, and
for numerous chapters of The American Guild of Organists. He has also
served as special music advisor to The Philadelphia Orchestra, working
with Maestros Bobby McFerrin and Thomas Wilkins.
In June 1999, Jeffrey
Brillhart was appointed the fourth Music Director of Singing
City, having served as Associate Director in the 1998-99 season, when
he worked closely with then Music Director Joseph Flummerfelt. As Music
Director, Mr. Brillhart provides artistic leadership for a rich program of
concerts, educational instruction in local schools, and outreach to
diverse communities. He directs the choir and oversees all aspects of
Singing City's musical initiatives. During his tenure with Singing City
the choir has traveled to Cuba, Northern Ireland and the Republic of
Ireland, presented more than one hundred-fifty concerts, performed with
The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and
worked with such internationally renowned artists as Helmuth Rilling, Dave
Brubeck, Nick Page, Moses Hogan, Andre Thomas, Anton Armstrong, and Weston
Noble, and Rossen Milanov.
In 1993, he took a five month
study leave in Paris, France where he studied organ improvisation, the
organ symphonies of Louis Vierne, and the music of Maurice Duruflé. His
coaches included Olivier Latry, Philippe Lefebvre, Marie Madeleine Duruflé
and Wolfgang Seifan. While in France he was one of the first Americans to
play a recital on the newly restored organ at Notre Dame Cathedral,
performing works of Louis Vierne and Max Reger.
Mr. Brillhart's formal
training was at Drake University, where he received his Bachelor of Church
Music degree, and at the Eastman School of Music, where he received a
Master of Performance and Literature degree. Prior to and during this time
his organ study was with Frank B. Jordan, Carl Staplin, Arthur Poister and
Russell Saunders. A pianist, harpsichordist, conductor and singer as well,
he studied with Barbara Lister-Sink, Lenora McCroskey and Margaret
Hauptmann. While at Eastman, Mr. Brillhart was active as a pianist in the
studios of Jan DeGaetani, John Maloy, Thomas Paul and Peter Salaff
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