ORGANIST JACOB BENDA TO PERFORM AT ST. JOSEPH CATHEDRAL

Noted organist Jacob Benda will perform on St. Joseph Cathedral’s 50-rank three-manual Reuter pipe organ “Providence” at 7:00 pm Tuesday, March 15.

Benda, a native and resident of St. Cloud, Minnesota, whose appearance in Baton Rouge was postponed twice over the last two years -- due first to the initial lockdown in the Covid-19 pandemic and then by a hand injury -- is set to perform a program of classic, sacred, and improvisational organ works by composers Charles Tournemire, Maurice Durufle, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Francis Poulenc, Charles Marie Widor, and Cesar Franck.

Among the program’s highlights will be the Southeast U.S. premiere of “The Phoenix” by David Bednall, with locally renowned Borislava Iltcheva on the violin accompanying Benda.