Organist Bálint Karosi to Perform at Holy Cross

Hungarian concert organist Bálint Karosi will perform on Sunday, April 3, at 3 p.m. in St. Joseph Memorial Chapel at the College of the Holy Cross as part of the Holy Cross Chapel Artists’ Series. The concert, which is handicap accessible, is free and open to the public.

Karosi’s performance will feature a variety of notable pieces, including works from Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Bohm, Johann Kaspar Kerll and Dieterich Buxtehude. He will also perform three improvised versets. 

A versatile musician, Karosi is also an accomplished composer, harpsichordist, clarinetist and improviser who has made a specialty of historic performance practice. His impressive resume of triumphs at prestigious international performance competitions includes first prize at the 16th International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig, Germany, first prize and audience prize at the Dublin International Organ Competition, first prize at the Arthur Poister Organ Competition, and first prize and audience prize at the Miami International Organ Competition. He was also a winner of the Prague Spring International Clarinet Competition in 2002.   

Karosi was commissioned to write a work for the new organ at the National Concert Hall in Budapest, Hungary, where he premiered this work, “Consonances,” a concerto for organ and symphony orchestra, as soloist in 2007. His performance was broadcast on American Public Media’s “Pipedreams” program. 

Karosi studied at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Conservatoire Superieure de Genève (Switzerland) with Lionel Rogg, and the Oberlin (Ohio) Conservatory of Music with James David Christie—the distinguished artist-in-residence at Holy Cross—earning two master’s degrees, two Prix de Virtuosité as well as both an Artist Diploma and a Master of Music degree in historical keyboard performance. In 2009, he received the Prima Primissima Junior Prize for music, which honors the most distinguished performers of his native Hungary.     

Karosi resides in Boston, where he is organist and director of music at the First Lutheran Church. He is also an active performer in chamber music circles and plays historical clarinet for Boston Baroque.   The 2010-11 season of the Chapel Artists’ Series will conclude with Jesuit Heritage Concert of Baroque Music on Sunday, May 1, at 3 p.m.

For more information about any of the performances in the Chapel Artists’ Series, please call the music department at (508) 793-2296, or visit the website at: academics.holycross.edu/music