Free concert featuring world-renowned organist the be held Friday, honors new monarch

LAFAYETTE, Ind. − On the eve of King Charles III’s coronation, James O’Donnell, organist and former Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey in London, will perform a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette.

O’Donnell has been internationally recognized as a conductor, organist and teacher, and has performed all over the world. After his 23-year tenure as organist and Master of Choristers at Westminster Abbey, he now serves as an organist professor at the Yale School of Music and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in New Haven, Conn.

On Friday, O’Donnell will perform a free organ concert that will feature a mixture of different works, including music from England, Germany and France from the 17th-20th centuries. He will play on the 30-rank Quimby organ that was installed at St. John’s in 2018, according to a release.

St. John’s Episcopal Church had an 1,800-pipe Quimby organ installed in 2018.

“In his tenure at Westminster Abbey, O’Donnell was responsible for all musical aspects of the Abbey’s work, training and conducting the Abbey Choir in its daily choral services, recordings, concerts, and broadcasts,” the release stated, “and at the great national occasions for which the Abbey is known, including directing the music for the September 2022 State Funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, which was broadcast live throughout the world to an estimated audience of over 4 billion people. He has toured extensively with the Choir of Westminster Abbey to the United States, the Far East, Australia and Europe.”

For more information on the Friday concert, contact Michael Bennett, St. Johns’ director of music and organist, at michael@stjohns-laf.org or 765-742-4079, ext. 104.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: On the eve of the upcoming coronation, a free organ concert will be held