DONALD SUTHERLAND

Biography

Donald Sutherland is Coordinator of the Organ faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where in 1997, he was given the "Excellence in Teaching Award" by the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association.

Mr. Sutherland received his Master of Music degree at Syracuse University where he was a student of Arthur Poister, later becoming his assistant. In 1965, after completing military service, he returned to Syracuse University as a member of the School of Music faculty. In 1988, he was presented with the school's "Distinguished Alumni Award" in recognition of his distinguished achievements in music.

During the past several seasons, Donald Sutherland was a featured recitalist for the 25^th anniversary of the National Pastoral Musicians, performing a workshop and 4^th of July recital in Washington, D.C. He appeared at the Great Romantics weekend in Christ Church Cathedral, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the Westfield, New Jersey Bach Festival, and St. Stephens Cathedral in Vienna, Austria. In recent years, he has dedicated new instruments in Virginia, as well as the new Holtkamp organ in the prize-winning restoration of Griswold Hall at Peabody Conservatory, the latter repeated four times in two days in order to accommodate the crowds. Since the new organ was installed, he has performed the Hindemith “Concerto” with the Peabody Chamber Winds, the Kodaly “Missa Brevis” with the Peabody Singers and recorded music written for the Millenium celebration in Times Square. In 2004, Donald Sutherland performed a recital with organ and brass to celebrate the renovated concert halls, the first performance of which was Peter Klatzow’s “Towards the Light”, dedicated to Donald Sutherland and the percussionist, Svetoslav Stoyanov.

Prior to these engagements at Peabody, he toured in Hungary, Germany and Czechoslovakia with the Una Voce Ensemble and was the recitalist for the 200^th Anniversary of the Medical and Chirugical Society. In January of 2006, Mr. Sutherland was invited to perform a recital and present several days of master classes for over 70 students at the Youngsan Art Hall in Seoul, Korea. In the same season he performed recitals in Atlanta and for the St. Petersburg Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. He was a guest on the CAGE series at Peabody where he performed ‘Volumina’ by Ligeti in memory of the composer with Lukas Ligeti (the composer’s son) performing on the same program. He was a featured recitalist at the 2007 Region III Convention of the American Guild of Organists.

Throughout his career, Mr. Sutherland has appeared frequently under the auspices of the American Guild of Organists in recital and at both national and regional conventions in the roles of recitalist, workshop leader, adjudicator and choral conductor. He is currently serving his third term as National Secretary of the American Guild of Organists. He has appeared both as conductor and as organ soloist at numerous Kennedy Center Festivals. At Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church, Bethesda, Maryland, where he was Director of Music Ministries for 28 years, Mr. Sutherland developed a program of such excellence that his choir was invited to participate in both the Mozart Festival and the Haydn Festival at the John F. Kennedy Center. In recognition of his service to the community, Montgomery County Executive, Douglas Duncan, presented him with a Certificate of Recognition for his long-standing support of Bethesda Cares. Mr. Sutherland has made frequent radio broadcasts for National Public Radio, the BBC in London, BBC World Services, as well as in Austria and Germany, and has recorded for Gothic and CRI. Other engagements have included a televised performance for CBS and orchestral appearances with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center; the Baltimore Symphony at Carnegie Hall; the City of London Sinfonia, under the direction of Richard Hickox, the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra in the premier of Mark Weiser’s Concerto which was dedicated to Mr. Sutherland, and was soloist at St. Anne’s Church in Washington, performing newly edited Concerti for organ and orchestra by Georg Riemenschneider and Ebenezer Prout.

A frequent performer of new music, Mr. Sutherland has had composers such as Richard Felciano, Gunther Schuller, Rachel Lauren, David Conte, Peter Klatzow, and William Albright dedicate works to him. Sutherland was organist and harpsichordist with the former Theater Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center founded and directed by pianists Leon Fleisher and Dina Koston. This ensemble performed often in Washington as well as in other major cities throughout the U.S. and Canada.

As a solo recitalist, Donald Sutherland has appeared in recital throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Europe. He has performed at Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris; the Bath International Festival; the “Art of the Organ” Festival, Vienna; Walsingham Festival; the Alexandra Palace; King’s College, Cambridge; Westminster Abbey, London; at Aldeburgh Parish Church during the Aldeburgh Festival; and as one of two Americans who performed at the first Soviet-American International Organ Festival in Aachen, Germany. In 2006, Mr. Sutherland performed with the Philadelphia Brass quintet in the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. In the mid 1990’s, Sutherland performed in Hamilton, Ontario, where he was a featured artist for the Convention of the American Liszt Society in addition to playing a recital on the Concerts Spirituels series at St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal. He returned to Hamilton in 2001 for the Great Romantics Weekend. He was honored by a return recital at Westminster Abbey, where he played an all-Liszt program for Remembrance Sunday, and was organist for the bicentenary service to honor George Peabody, founder of the Peabody Conservatory.

In addition to his solo recital appearances, Donald Sutherland has taught at numerous summer organ academies, among them: Oundle (UK) International Organ Week (1985, 1986, 1991); St. Dunstan’s College Conference on Sacred Music (1990, 1991, 1994); Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, the Summer Institute of Church Music, Ontario, Canada, and was invited to give a master class at the Curtis Institute, the first non-Curtis faculty member to do so. In frequent demand as an adjudicator, Donald Sutherland has been a judge at the National Young Artists Competition in Organ Playing, sponsored by the American Guild of Organists, the St. Alban’s International Organ Festival in England, the March 2004 Arthur Poister Competition held in Syracuse, New York, and the West Chester Competition in the same year and in 2007.

He has been asked on several occasions to provide articles of interests for national and international publications. In recent years, he has written a birthday tribute to Marie-Claire Alain for the “Diapason” magazine. In the Korean Magazine “ORGAN”, he contributed an article on American Organ Music in addition to being the subject of an article in a previous edition. He was featured in the British Magazine “Choir and Organ” in an article ‘approaches to music from professors of note’.

Mr. Sutherland appeared frequently as organist and pianist in joint recital with his wife, renowned soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson. They performed together throughout the United States, Canada and in Europe, including the opening recital of London's South Bank "Summerscope," and the Theatre de l'Althenee in Paris, France. In the United States, they premiered countless new works, as well as teaming up for workshops: The University of Kansas in Lawrence; regional American Guild of Organists’ conventions in Syracuse, Buffalo, Washington DC and Pittsburgh; the national AGO convention in Atlanta; Hartt Contemporary Organ Festivals in Hartford. They performed the music for the soundtrack of The Owl and the Pussycat by Stravinsky for the Canadian Film Institute, and were featured on National Public Radio’s “Music from Washington.”

In September of 1996, Mr. Sutherland was honored for twenty-five years of music ministry at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church. A glorious weekend of music launched the Donald Sinclair Sutherland Music Ministries Endowment for musical outreach to the community, and an anonymous donor established a scholarship in Mr. Sutherland's name at the Peabody Conservatory, to celebrate the occasion. In 2007, he accepted the title of “Director of Music Emeritus”.

Donald Sutherland has made several recordings, one of which was an all-Liszt CD recorded for Gothic Records at St. Patrick’s in the City, Washington D.C., and most recently is a recording called 50 Years of Organ Music from Syracuse University, featuring past and present members of the organ faculty. He is also featured on two CD’s with the Washington Men’s Camerata.

Current as of August, 2007