Bio

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.

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, he performed 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.   His improvisation textbook, Breaking Free, was published by Wayne Leupold Editions in November 2011. Click here to download the table of contents and an excerpt from Breaking Free.

He has presented master classes at the Curtis Institute of Music, University of Iowa, Baylor University, the Eastman School of Music, The University of Alabama, 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, the Republic of Ireland and Brazil, 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, Weston Noble, and Rossen Milanov. In July 2012, he will lead the choir on a ground-breaking tour of Bosnia.

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 pianist for the studios of Jan DeGaetani, John Maloy, Thomas Paul and Peter Salaf.