Noted organist, scholar and conductor: Dr. J. Owen Burdick

What a befitting way to begin the Christmas Season!  The noted organist, conductor and scholar Dr. J. Owen Burdick drops in to discuss the upcoming performance of Handel's Messiah at Washington, D. C.'s Church of  the Ascension and Saint Agnes.  Dr. Owen shares with us the significance of this performance and the special appeal of the timeless masterpiece.  Owen is no stranger to the work, with his many perfornances at Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City being praised by critics and music lovers alike.  Burdick served as Director of Music at Trinity from 1990-2008.  He now serves as Organist/Choirmaster at Church of the Ascension and Saint Agnes.

A graduate of State University of New York at Purchase and the Juilliard School (where his principal teachers included Albert Fuller, Anthony Newman, and Igor Kipnis), Burdick received his Ph.D. in music composition from the University of California in Los Angeles and holds the Associate and Choirmaster Certificates from the American Guild of Organists. He was recently made a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music and has studied as a conducting fellow with Helmuth Rilling and at IRCAM with Pierre Boulez. Since his Carnegie Hall debut in 1978, Burdick has toured internationally as a harpsichord soloist and with the Musical Offering Baroque Ensemble, with whom he accompanied Maurice André, Arleen Auger, and Henryk Szeryng. Burdick has recorded for the NAXOS, Hänssler Classic, Nonesuch, Summit, Gothic, and Centaur labels and is represented by Slaymaker Special Projects.

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