An all-Bach program is in store for the final performance of Bethel College’s 2023-2024 Organ Recital Series.
Douglas O’Neill, Kansas City, will play Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. in the Administration Building chapel.
The recital is free and open to the public.
Dr. O’Neill’s program includes Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C, BWV 545; “Four Duets from Clavierübung III, BWV 802-805”; Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 535; Trio Sonata in G, BWV 530; Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542; and several chorales and shorter pieces.
Winner of the 1999 Dublin International Organ Competition, Dr. O’Neill is an active performer on organ, piano and harpsichord, as well as a church musician and choral conductor.
He holds degrees from the University of Evansville (Ind.), the University of Iowa and the University of Kansas, where he completed the D.M.A. in church music. His principal teachers have been Douglas Reed, Delbert Disselhorst and James Higdon.
Dr. O’Neill has performed solo and collaborative concerts in the United States and Europe, including the Dublin International Organ and Choral Festival.
He has also performed at regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the American Choral Directors Association and the International Trumpet Guild, as well as with the Utah Symphony Orchestra.
He previously served as assistant university organist at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn.; on the faculty of the University of Evansville; as associate organist and director of the Organ Academy at Saint Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha, Neb.; and as organist and assistant director of music at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City.
Dr. O’Neill’s responsibilities at the Madeleine included playing for daily liturgies at the cathedral, managing the acclaimed Eccles Organ Festival, and teaching at the Madeleine Choir School, the only full-time co-educational Catholic choir school in North America.
He also prepared numerous editions of chant and polyphony, as well as compositions and orchestrations, for performance by the choirs of the school and cathedral.
In addition to his prizewinning effort in Dublin, Dr. O’Neill has participated in the Grand Prix de Chartres (France), the Concours internationaux de la Ville de Paris, and the RCO Performer of the Year Competitions, and was a finalist in the Grand Prix Bach de Lausanne competition.
Dr. O’Neill is in the midst of a project of playing the complete organ works of J.S. Bach, and currently serves as director of formation in sacred music and liturgy at Christ the King School and Parish in Kansas City, Kan.
Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Bethel ranks at #23 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of “Best Regional Colleges Midwest” for 2023-24. Bethel was the first Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center, in 2021. For more information, see https://www.bethelks.edu
