It’s Alive! The ever-popular Halloween Organ Concert rises from the dead with the arrival of Dr. Stephen Price, the UW’s inaugural Paul B. Fritts Faculty Fellow, who joins with friends to host a program of spooky organ classics and Halloween fun. With Melia Watras, Wyatt Smith, Trey Wheeler, Karen Haining, Emily Chua, and Stephen Price.
Program
Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Wyatt Smith
In The Hall of the Mountain King (from Peer Gynt Suite) – Edvard Grieg (b.1843-1907)
Salamanca (from 'Trois Préludes Hambourgeois') – Guy Bovet (b.1942)
Stephen Price
Hebräisches Wiegenlied, Op. 35, No. 2 (Hebrew Lullaby) – Joseph Achron (1886-1943)
Après un rêve, Op. 7, No. 1 (After a dream) – Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Lied for Viola and Organ, Op. 2, No. 5 – Toivo Kuula (1883-1918)
Improvisation – Watras/Price
Melia Watras, viola and Stephen Price
Pastorale
From 24 Pièces en style libre, Op.31 – Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
Karen Haining
Arabesque
From 24 Pièces en style libre, Op.31 – Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
Emily Chua
*Pumpkin Carol: “The Twelve Days of Halloween”
"Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" from Les Miserables, music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Alain Boublil & Herbert Kretzmer.
Trey Wheeler
*Audience Participation
Selections from Star Wars – John Williams (b. 1932) Arr. by Tony Esposito
Stephen Price
Präludium in f-sharp minor, BuxWV 146 – Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
Wyatt Smith
Biographies
Emily Chau
Karen Haining
Wyatt Smith
Trey Wheeler
Stephen “Stef" Price joined the music faculty at the University of Washington (Seattle) in September 2023 as the inaugural Paul B. Fritts Faculty Fellow and Artist-in-Residence in organ performance.
Dr. Price previously held the position of Assistant Teaching Professor in music (organ) at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. In his previous post, he maintained an organ studio including undergraduate and graduate students, and also taught church music, music history, and music theory courses. His former organ students have obtained church positions throughout the United States and are active within the profession.
Dr. Price is a native of Buffalo, New York. He served as Assistant Minister of Music at Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church and Organ Scholar during his senior year of high school at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, where he studied with Andrew Scanlon. Subsequently, he attended Western Connecticut State University, under the direction of Stephen Roberts, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree and served as Organ Scholar at St. Paul's Episcopal Church on the Green in Norwalk, Connecticut, serving under Director of Music, Vince Edwards. Following his undergraduate career, Dr. Price received a Fulbright Scholarship to Toulouse, France, where he studied "Historical and Modern" performance practices of French Organ Music under the guidance of Michel Bouvard and Jan Willem Jansen. Dr. Price then attended the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, receiving the Master of Music and Doctor of Music degrees. During his graduate studies, Dr. Price competed and garnered awards in several international competitions, including the Franz Schmidt Organ Competition (Austria), André Marchal Organ Competition (France), and the Canadian International Organ Competition (Montreal). While at Indiana University, he studied under the mentorship of Dr. Janette Fishell.
After completing his coursework at Indiana University, Dr. Price accepted a full-time position as Associate Director of Music and Organist at First United Methodist Church, San Diego, California, serving from 2015-17. In 2019, Dr. Price was a performer and served on the jury for the Regional Competition for Young Organists at the Northeast Regional American Guild of Organists Convention in Buffalo, New York. Dr. Price presented for the OrganFest 2020 virtual PipeTalk series titled "A Discussion for New Organ Teachers: Where to Start and How to Proceed?" In the fall of 2020, Dr. Price participated in a webinar series on teaching, presenting the topic "Building an Organist Artistry through Literature Choices," sponsored by the AGO's committee on continuing professional education.
In addition to his teaching duties at Ball State, Dr. Price served as the coordinator for the Sursa American Organ Competition for High School and Pre-Professional organists hosted at Ball State. He also served on the Organ Historical Society's Advisory Membership Committee and the American Guild of Organists Education Committee. Upon invitation, Dr. Price served as an adjudicator for the First Presbyterian National Organ Playing Competition (Fort Wayne, IN); and the Strader Organ Scholarship Competition (University of Cincinnati). While residing in Indiana, Dr. Price served at Plainfield United Methodist (Plainfield, IN), as choir director and organist; Holy Trinity Lutheran ELCA (New Castle, IN), and as Organist at High Street United Methodist Church, Muncie, Indiana, where he initiated the church's first organ scholar position to inspire and train future church musicians in East Central Indiana.
Recent appearances include the 2022 Organ Historical Society Convention (Columbus, OH); St. Ita's Roman Catholic Church (Chicago); Zion Lutheran Church (Fort Wayne, IN); St. John the Divine (New York City); and First Presbyterian Church (Buffalo, NY). Additionally, Michael Barone has featured recordings and live performances on the Pipedreams Broadcast on NPR.
Dr. Price's debut album, Paris Impact Organ Suites, has been released on the Raven recording label and is available for purchase at RavenCD.com.
Melia Watras has been hailed by Gramophone as “an artist of commanding and poetic personality” and by The Strad as “staggeringly virtuosic.” As a violist, composer and collaborative artist, she has sustained a distinguished career as a creator and facilitator of new music and art.
The 2024-25 season includes the releases of three recordings featuring her music: her latest album as violist/composer, The almond tree duos; Michael Jinsoo Lim’s solo violin album Kinetic, which features three works by Watras; and Atar Arad’s Partita Party, which includes Watras’s Sarabanda for solo viola. Several world premieres are also waiting in the wings: Broken Bell, a dramatic setting of her compositions within a play written by Sean Harvey, a solo violin work commissioned by baroque violinist Tekla Cunningham, and a new piece by Ha-Yang Kim commissioned by Watras.
Watras’s much-lauded work as a recording artist spans nearly three decades. The WholeNote notes that her album Play/Write “unfolds an exquisite world in which beauty and dreams flirt with sorrow.” String Masks, a collection of her own compositions including the titular work which utilizes Harry Partch instruments, was praised for “not only the virtuoso’s sensitive playing, but also her innovative and daring spirit,” by the Journal of the American Viola Society. Her compositional debut album, Firefly Songs, was hailed for “distilling rich life experiences into strikingly original musical form” by Textura. Schumann Resonances was described by the American Record Guide as “a rare balance of emotional strength and technical delicacy.” The Strad called 26 “a beautiful celebration of 21st century viola music.” Ispirare made numerous Best of 2015 lists, including the Chicago Reader’s (“Watras knocked the wind out of me with the dramatically dark beauty of this recording”). Short Stories was a Seattle Times Critics’ Pick, with the newspaper marveling at her “velocity that seems beyond the reach of human fingers.” Of her debut solo CD (Viola Solo), Strings praised her “stunning virtuosic talent” and called her second release (Prestidigitation) “astounding and both challenging and addictive to listen to.”
Watras’s compositions have been performed in US cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Bloomington (IN), and countries including Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, and Wales. She has been commissioned by the American Viola Society, the Avalon String Quartet, violinists Tekla Cunningham, Mark Fewer, Rachel Lee Priday and Michael Jinsoo Lim, cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, pianist Cristina Valdés, accordionist Jeanne Velonis, violist Rose Wollman, and has had works performed by artists such as violist Atar Arad, singer Galia Arad, pianist Winston Choi, Harry Partch Instrumentarium Director Charles Corey, violinists Manuel Guillén and Yura Lee, vocalist Carrie Henneman Shaw, percussionist Bonnie Whiting and the ensemble Frequency. Her music has been heard on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, and can be found on the albums The almond tree duos; Kinetic; Partita Party; Play/Write; String Masks; 3 Songs for Bellows, Buttons and Keys; Firefly Songs; Schumann Resonances and 26. Watras’s adaptation of John Corigliano’s Fancy on a Bach Air for viola is published by G. Schirmer, Inc. and can be heard on her Viola Solo album.
For twenty years, Watras concertized worldwide and recorded extensively as violist of the renowned Corigliano Quartet, which she co-founded. The quartet appears on 13 albums, including their recording on the Naxos label, which was honored as one of the Ten Best Classical Recordings of the Year by The New Yorker.
Melia Watras studied with Atar Arad at Indiana University, earning Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and the prestigious Performer’s Certificate. While at Indiana, Watras began her teaching career as Professor Arad’s Associate Instructor, and was a member of the faculty as a Visiting Lecturer. She went on to study chamber music at the Juilliard School while serving as a teaching assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet.
Watras is currently Professor of Viola and Chair of Strings at the University of Washington, where she holds the Ruth Sutton Waters Endowed Professorship. In 2024, the American Viola Society presented Watras with the Maurice W. Riley Award, for her distinguished contributions to the viola as a performer, composer, teacher and leader.