The UNT Organ program boasts faculty members with credentials from some of the top organ programs in the United States and Europe. In addition to being outstanding educators, organ faculty members are equally well regarded as performers, researchers, and composers.

Jesse Eschbach, DMA
(940) 565-4094
jesse.eschbach@unt.edu
Recording: Maurice Durufle's Suite pour orgue Op. 5
Recorded live in concert at the Basilique Saint-Ouen, Rouen.
Aristide Cavaille-Coll, 1890.
Prelude
Sicilienne
Toccata

The 2004-05 season represents a significant milestone in the career of Jesse Eschbach. Diagnosed in 1994 with focal dystonia in the right hand, he suspended public performances and resigned from concert management in 1998. In 2003, the Cleveland Clinic announced an experimental therapy for dystonias and recommended that Eschbach be evaluated. Following six weeks in a cast and many months of retraining hand muscles and technique under the supervision of Dr. Kee Fedak, much of his facility returned and he is returning to performing.

Eschbach is a graduate of Indiana University and the University of Michigan where he was a student of Robert Glasgow. He completed his formal education during a five-year residency in Paris as a student of Marie-Claire Alain, specializing in early French music in her conservatory class at Rueil-Malmaison where he was awarded both a Prix d’Excellence and a Prix de Virtuosité. As one of the very last students of the legendary Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier, he studied the complete organ works of her husband, Maurice Duruflé, as well as much of the French symphonic repertoire. Since 1986, Eschbach has served on the faculty at the University of North Texas as the full-time Professor of Organ, instructing performance majors at all levels, and is currently Chairman of the Division of Keyboard Studies. His students have dominated the annual San Antonio competition since 1995 and have won prizes in national competitions as well. A very active performer until 1998, Eschbach has several CDs to his credit, including a disc recorded at the Cathédrale de Perpignan entitled “Music of the Second Empire and Beyond”, released in June, 2003. Also released in 2003 was his 800+ page book, detailing the original stoplists of the majority of organs constructed by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, based extensively on the Lapresté collection. This research is still in progress, and an expanded second edition will be released in the next few years. The first edition received a very positive “feature review” in the March, 2007 issue of The American Organist. Likewise, his CD recorded on the 1857 Aristide Cavaillé-Coll organ in Perpignan consisting of works by Lemmens, Franck, Gigout, Fessy, Schubert, and Couturier garnered high praise in a February, 2007 review in The Diapason.

Eschbach has pursued his technical studies with the renowned Sheila Paige, Director of the Piano Wellness Clinic. Based on the work of Dorothy Taubman but recast to reflect her own advances in promoting healthy technique, Paige equips her students with technical ease, fluency, and facility based on historical ideas known to musicians since at least the beginning of the nineteenth century. His work with Sheila Paige is now reflected in his own pedagogy.

Mark Scott
Sacred Music Seminars Instructor
muspms@ststephen-pcusa.com

See More on Sacred Music at UNT

Mark Scott was a Nordan Fine Arts Scholar at Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth where he earned two degrees: Organ Performance (1975) and Church Music (1975). He has done additional study at the Royal School of Church Music (England). His organ study has been with Lydia Grey, Madeline Henshaw and at TCU, with Emmet G. Smith. Choral studies at TCU were with B. R. Henson and Caro Carapeytan and private voice study with Desire Ligeti. He was elected to Pi Kappa Lambda in 1974.

Since 1975, Mark Scott has been the Minister of Music and Organist at St. Stephen Presbyterian Church in Ft. Worth where he is solely responsible for administration, teaching, conducting and accompanying a comprehensive music program including children's', youth, handbell and adult choirs. He is also the founder/administrator of the St. Stephen Special Series, presenting ten to fifteen events each season including organ recitals, choral concerts, instrumental concerts and jazz concerts. In 1993, Scott oversaw the rebuilding of the sanctuary organ. In 2000, Mr. Scott was granted a sabbatical leave for the purpose of studying plainsong which he spent in America, Gt. Britain and France, culminating in a three-week stay at the Abbaye Saint-Pierre in Solesmes, France. He has been the organ clinician at the annual Mo Ranch Music Conference. He has been chairman of the board as well as a guest conductor for the Schola Cantorum of Texas and was on the selection committee that chose current conductor; and was the interim conductor of the Arlington Choral Society for one season.

Professional memberships include American Choral Directors Association, Texas Choral Directors Association, American Guild of Organists, The Organ Club (Gt. Britain), Presbyterian Association of Musicians, and PALT, a theological study group. Mr. Scott is chairman of the board of the Kinderplatz of Fine Arts, a Ft. Worth school focused on learning through the arts.

Harpsichord & Organ Faculty

Christoph Hammer

Christoph Hammer, born in 1966, won First Prize in the nationwide “Jugend musiziert” competition in 1983 for his performance on the organ. He subsequently studied organ at the Academy of Music and Theater in Munich (Hochschule für Musik und Theater), also attending courses and workshops with renowned specialists for historic keyboard instruments. In addition, he studied German Literature and Musicology at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich and at UCLA. He was a scholarship winner of the Stiftung Maximilianeum and the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes.

Since 1989, Hammer has focused on playing historical keyboard instruments, especially the Hammerklavier / fortepiano. He has achieved an international reputation as a soloist and Lied accompanist as well as in chamber music. Numerous recordings document his success. Newest publication is a CD with Piano Works by Carl Cerny (ORF Edition). In addition to the established concert repertoire, Hammer dedicates his time to the rediscovery of little-known composers as well as researching and editing their works. From 2002-2008 he was teaching an oratorio class at the Academy of Music and Theater in Munich. 2009 he was appointed as an associate professor for hatpsichord and fortepiano at the University of North Texas. Christoph Hammer has been invited to teach masterclasses at numerous important institutions such as Czech State Music Academy (Prague), Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Moskau), State Music Academy (Minsk) and others. He performed at numerous international festivals such as Mozart-Festival Wuerzburg, Festival de piano Roques d’Antheron, Festwochen fuer Alte Musik Innsbruck, Tage alter Musik Herne, La folles journee Nantes, Tonhalle Zuerich, Konzerthaus Wien, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Munich State Opera Festival, Beethovenhaus Bonn and others. Christoph Hammer has played as a soloist with orchestras such as Concerto Cologne, Nederlands Kammerorchest, Los Angeles Baroue Orchestra, Prague Chamber Orchestra a.o.

Christoph Hammer has founded and directed the Munich-based baroque orchestra "NEUE HOFKAPELLE MÜNCHEN” since 1996 and is increasingly being engaged as a conductor. In July 2002, he was awarded the prestigious Culture Prize of the State of Bavaria for his wide range of activities in the field of Early Music and in 2004 he received an award from the Bavarian Volksstiftung for his research and performance work in Bavarian music history. In 2003, he founded the “Residenzwoche München”, acting as the festival’s artistic director. A recording of Giovanni Ferrandini's opera Catone in Utica, which was performed during the festival on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the opening of the famous theatre , has appeared with Oehms-Classics. Christoph Hammer also worked with lots of renowned Orchestras as “Badische Staatskapelle”, “Munich Symphonic Orchestra”, “Bruckner-Orchester Linz” , “Bremer Philharmonisches Orchester” and others. Hammer conducted Opera and Oratorio Productions by Monteverdi, Haendel, Carissimi, Cavalli, Steffani, Purcell, Conti, Keiser, Telemann, Ferrandini, Marcello, Leo and Mozart.

For information on organ studies contact:
Dr. Jesse Eschbach, Chair, Keyboard Division
Phone: 940-565-4094
jesse.eschbach@unt.edu