2019-2021 RECITAL SERIES ARTIST:
Margaret Kvamme: September 24, 2021
Canadian-born organist Margaret Martin Kvamme was named first-prize winner of the 1993 Naples International Organ Festival Competition in Florida. She has performed extensively throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, in Michigan; Ohio; New York; Arizona; and Ontario, Canada. She has appeared on the "Distinguished Women at the Console" series in Akron, Ohio, was featured as solo artist with the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, and has been heard on numerous programs of the nationally syndicated radio program, Pipedreams.
Her performances are organized around cohesive elements; a program for organ and narrator performed with mezzo-soprano Shirley Harned Kelley used the theme of Science and incorporated music about animals, space, and transportation.
In 2007 Ms. Kvamme's debut album, featuring sets of variations from J. S. Bach to Emma Lou Diemer and other contemporary American composers, was released to critical acclaim on the Albany label.
Also a conductor, Ms. Kvamme was formerly Director of the Concert Choir at the University of California at Santa Cruz and Director of Choral Activities at Marygrove College in Detroit, and has been Guest Conductor for the Santa Clara Chorale. For six years Ms. Kvamme served as Director of Music for Joint Venture Churches in San Jose.
Ms. Kvamme is an honors graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, holds the Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music, and Master of Music degrees in Organ Performance and Choral Conducting from the University of Michigan.
Her organ teachers include David Craighead, Robert Glasgow, David Higgs and David Palmer and Sandra Soderlund. She has studied conducting with Jerry Blackstone, Theodore Morrison and Nicole Paiement, and has participated in masterclasses with Helmut Rilling and Gustav Meier (conducting), Edward Parmentier (harpsichord), and Gerre Hancock and Gillian Wier (organ).
Currently Ms. Kvamme is active as a freelance organist and private teacher and serves the Presbyterian Church of Los Gatos as Associate Organist.