The Chicago Recital

Isabelle Demers cements her reputation as one of the most expressive organists at work today with a crafted recital delivered with consummate skill. Cleverly designed to show off Chicago University’s vast 8,565 pipe, IV/89 Skinner organ, Ernest Macmillan’s Cortège académique inks in its romantic credentials with robust use of tuba and diapasons as much as the diaphanous reeds in Demers’s own excerpted transcription of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Rachel Laurin’s Monologue is a quietly thrilling display with a show-stopping climax for solo pedals, Reger’s op.127 Introduction, Passacaglia & Fugue and Dupré’s B major Prelude & Fugue (op.7 no.1) vividly realised in producer Geoffrey Silver’s immediate sound.

MICHAEL QUINN Read the full review on Agora Classica