‘That elevated science’

     

Magpie file photo

Bro. Erik Carlson at St. John’s Lodge No. 1 AYM, October 2012.

A Brother Freemason, from my own lodge actually—Publicity 1000 in the Fourth Manhattan—will perform an organ recital later this month at a church in Nutley, New Jersey. From the publicity:

Erik Carlson Organ Recital

Sunday, September 13 at 5 p.m.

Vincent United Methodist Church

100 Vincent Place

Nutley, New Jersey

Repertoire of Johann Sebastian Bach,

Léon Boëllmann,

and Johann Pachelbel

Erik Carlson graduated magna cum laude from the Hartt School at the University of Hartford, where he completed dual degrees in keyboard performance and music theory. Carlson is a former adult chorister in the Schola Cantorum of Saint Bartholomew’s Church in New York City. He has accompanied choral Evensong at the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Chagford, Devon, UK.

He has conducted at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York City and at the College of Preachers in Washington, DC. Most recently, Carlson had the opportunity to play the 1895 organ at L’église Notre-Dame de Dijon, France where Léon Boëllmann’s “Gothic Suite” premiered in 1895.

Carlson today is music director and organist at Saint Philip’s Episcopal Church, New York City. He grew up in Nutley and graduated from Nutley High School.


I have had the pleasure of enjoying Bro. Erik’s music at Masonic Hall, where he serves as sit-in organist occasionally, and I’m looking forward to hearing him perform here.