Faculty artist Stephen Price, organ, is joined by UW colleague Rachel Lee Priday, violin, in performing the Suite for Violin and Organ, Op. 150, by Joseph Rheinberger, as well as solo organ works from the French Symphonic tradition. Price is the UW's inaugural Paul B. Fritts Endowed Faculty Fellow in Organ Studies.
Biographies
STEPHEN “Stef” C. PRICE recently joined the music faculty at the University of Washington (Seattle) as the inaugural Paul B. Fritts Faculty Fellow and Artist-in-Residence and head of organ studies beginning in September 2023. Dr. Price teaches Organ performance, Church music, and Keyboard Harmony courses. In addition, he leads ongoing initiatives toward the development and revitalization efforts of the UW program, continuing the legacy of his predecessor, Dr. Carole Terry.
Several initiatives have taken place under his leadership, including reinstating the Annual Walker-Ames Halloween Organ Concert, organizing masterclasses by nationally renowned guest artists, and leading University projects connecting donors to the Organ program and School of Music. Dr. Price also organizes yearly rental agreements with Seattle churches and the School of Music, allowing students to utilize the eclectic range of organs available in the city.
In the formative years of study, he served on the music ministry staff at Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church and as an Organ Scholar at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Buffalo, New York. Subsequently, he attended Western Connecticut State University (Danbury, CT) and concurrently served as Organ Scholar at St. Paul's Episcopal Church on the Green (Norwalk, CT). Following undergraduate studies, he received a Fulbright Scholarship to Toulouse, France, where he studied "Historical and Modern" performance practices of French Organ Music. Upon returning to the States, he enrolled at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University (Bloomington, IN), receiving the Master of Music and Doctor of Music degrees.
In addition, he competed and garnered awards in international competitions, including the Franz Schmidt Organ Competition (Austria), the André Marchal Organ Competition (France), and the Canadian International Organ Competition (Montreal).
Following his graduate studies, he accepted a full-time position as Associate Director of Music and Organist at First United Methodist Church, San Diego, California (2015-17). He then received an Assistant Teaching Professorship at Ball State University (Muncie, IN). During his appointment (2018-2023), he taught Organ performance, Church music, Music History, and Music Theory courses. In addition, he served as coordinator for the Sursa American Organ Competition, a national event open to High School and Pre-Professional organists hosted at Ball State.
His professional activity includes presentations on Pedagogy, Organ Literature, and Hymn Playing for Chapters of the American Guild of Organists. As a performer, he has given concerts around the U.S., including the recent premiere of Psalm 23 for Organ, composed by Dr. Eurydice Osterman for the 2024 AGO National Convention in San Francisco. He has participated as a juror for competitions, including the National Organ Playing Competition (Fort Wayne, IN); the Strader Organ Scholarship Competition (University of Cincinnati); and the 2024 Barlow Prize Endowment for Music Competition – Organ (Snowbird, UT).
The 2024-2025 season includes appearances at Christ Church Anglican Cathedral (Victoria, B.C.), Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church (Seattle, WA), Loyola University (Chicago, IL), and a juror for the Taylor National Organ Competition (Atlanta, GA). Additionally, Michael Barone has featured recordings and live performances on the Pipedreams Broadcast on NPR.
Teachers: Andrew Scanlon, Stephen Roberts, Vince Edwards, Michel Bouvard, Jan Willem Jansen, Bruce Neswick, Wilma Jensen, and Janette Fishell.
Dr. Price’s debut album, Paris Impact Organ Suites, is released on the Raven recording label. He is represented by Seven Eight Artists: SevenEightArtists.com/price
Violinist RACHEL LEE PRIDAY (PRY-day) is a passionate and inquisitive explorer in all her musical ventures, in search of contemporary relevance when performing the standard violin repertoire, and in discovering and commissioning new works. Her wide-ranging repertoire and eclectic programming reflect a deep fascination with literary and cultural narratives.
Rachel Lee Priday has appeared as soloist with major international orchestras, including the Chicago, Saint Louis, Houston, Seattle, and National Symphony Orchestras, the Boston Pops, and the Berlin Staatskapelle. Recital appearances have brought her to eminent venues including the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, Musée du Louvre, Verbier Festival, Ravinia Festival and Dame Myra Hess Memorial Series in Chicago, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival in Germany, and tours of South Africa and the United Kingdom.
Committed to new music, and making enriching community and global connections, Rachel takes a multidisciplinary approach to performing that lends itself to new commissions organically merging poetry, dance, drama, stimulating visuals and music. Recent seasons have seen a new Violin Sonata commissioned from Pulitzer Prize Finalist Christopher Cerrone and the premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s “The Orphic Moment” in an innovative staging that mixed poetry, drama, visuals, and music. Rachel has collaborated several times with Ballet San Jose, and was lead performer in “Tchaikovsky: None But The Lonely Heart” during a week-long theatrical concert with Ensemble for the Romantic Century at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Her work as soloist with the Asia America New Music Institute promoted new music relationships and cultural exchange between Asia and the Americas, combining new music premieres and educational outreach in the US, China, Korea and Vietnam.
Rachel began her violin studies at the age of four in Chicago. Shortly thereafter, she moved to New York to study with iconic pedagogue Dorothy DeLay, and continued her studies at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division with Itzhak Perlman. Rachel holds a B.A. degree in English from Harvard University and an M.M. from the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Miriam Fried. Since Fall 2019, she serves as Assistant Professor of Violin at the University of Washington School of Music.
Recent and upcoming concerto engagements include the Pacific Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Johannesburg Philharmonic, Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic, Stamford Symphony, and Bangor Symphony. Since making her orchestral debut at the Aspen Music Festival in 1997, she has performed with numerous orchestras across the country, such as the symphony orchestras of Colorado, Alabama, Knoxville, Rockford, and New York Youth Symphony. In Europe and in Asia, she has appeared at the Moritzburg Festival in Germany and with orchestras in Graz, Austria, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korea, where she performed with the KBS Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic and Russian State Symphony Orchestra on tour.
Rachel has been profiled in The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, Family Circle, and The Strad. Her concerts have been broadcast on major media outlets in the U.S., Germany, Korea, South Africa, and Brazil, including a televised concert in Rio de Janeiro, numerous radio appearances on 98.7 WFMT Chicago radio, and American Public Media’s Performance Today. She been featured on the Disney Channel, “Fiddling for the Future” and “American Masters” on PBS, and the Grammy Awards.
Praised by the Chicago Tribune for her “irresistible panache,” Rachel Lee Priday enthralls audiences with her riveting stage presence and “rich, mellifluous sound.” The Baltimore Sun wrote, “It’s not just her technique, although clearly there’s nothing she can’t do on the fingerboard or with her bow. What’s most impressive is that she is an artist who can make the music sing… And though her tone is voluptuous and sexy where it counts, she concluded the ‘Intermezzo’ with such charm that her listeners responded with a collective chuckle of approval as she finished.”
She performs on a Nicolo Gagliano violin (Naples, 1760), double-purfled with fleurs-de-lis, named Alejandro.