In celebration of the life of Yuko Hayashi, founder of the Old West Organ Society and Professor at New England Conservatory, please join us for the first annual Yuko Hayashi Memorial Recital.
Performed by former Hayashi student, concert organist Barbara Bruns, we will hear works of Johann Sebastian Bach alongside those of local composers Hayashi personally commissioned and championed.
This is a benefit recital. All ticket proceeds directly benefit Old West Organ Society. Even if you can’t attend, please consider making a donation.
Purchase your $25 tickets and make a donation here. Tickets are also available at the door.
Barbara Bruns
Barbara Bruns, the daughter of United Methodist missionaries, was born and raised in Japan where she spent the first 18 years of her life. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance, magna cum laude, from Augustana College, Illinois, and a Master of Music degree, with honors, from the New England Conservatory where she was elected to Pi Kappa Lambda honorary. She is the recipient of the “Outstanding Alumni Award” from Augustana College. Her organ studies have been with Yuko Hayashi, Harald Vogel, Arthur Poister, and Tom R. Harris. Recognized as an accomplished recitalist, accompanist, and conductor, she has concertized extensively in the United States, Europe, and Japan and has performed as soloist for national conventions of the Organ Historical Society, the American Guild of Organists, and the Association of Anglican Musicians. Her solo recital appearances include performances at Trinity Church, Copley Square, King’s Chapel, Old West Church and Church of the Advent, Boston, Harvard University and Adolphus Busch Hall, Cambridge, Methuen Memorial Music Hall, Massachusetts, St. Thomas’ Church, New York City, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, St. Paul Cathedral, Pittsburg, Cathedral of the Assumption, Louisville, International Christian University and Suntory Orchestra Hall, Tokyo, and Minato Mirai Concert Hall in Yokohama, Japan.
Since 1974 Ms. Bruns has served as Music Director at several Episcopal parishes including St. Stephen’s, Westborough, St. John’s, Gloucester, St. Michael’s, Marblehead, and St. Thomas’, Whitemarsh, PA. In 1977 she founded and directed the Cape Ann Singers, a seventeen-voice mixed vocal ensemble, which performed numerous concerts in Gloucester, Boston and the North Shore. From 1989-1996 she was organ instructor at the New England Conservatory Preparatory and Continuing Education Schools. Under the batons of Donald Teeters and Nicholas White, she was Associate Conductor of The Boston Cecilia for 31 years. From 2000-2005, she assisted Nicholas White as Associate Organist and Choirmaster at St. Michael’s Church in New York City. During that time she was appointed Music Director of AMUSE, a sixteen-voice vocal ensemble for amateur women in Manhattan. She was also Director of Training for Leadership Technologies, Inc., a consulting firm in New York City, and Chair of the “Leadership Program for Musicians”, a training program for church musicians serving ninety sites across the country.
Currently Ms. Bruns is Minister of Music at the Parish of Christ Church in Andover, Massachusetts where she directs a multi-level choir program and oversees a concert series featuring a pipe organ built in 2012 by the C. B. Fisk, Inc. company of Gloucester, Massachusetts. She has recorded two brass and organ CDs under the MSR Classics label which feature three Fisk organs in Massachusetts (Christ Church, Andover, Old West Church, Boston, and St. John’s Church, Gloucester) and the Rudolf von Beckerath organ at St. Michael’s Church in Manhattan.