Sunday, September 14, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Ilona Kubiaczyk-Adler
(Poland)
Ilona Kubiaczyk-Adler
(Poland)
Program
Music of Eastern Europe and the Americas
Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728-1788)
Fantasie in G Minor
Weronika Ratusińska (b. 1977)
Vivace, from “Trzy szkice” (Three sketches), 2010
Lesia Vasylivna Dychko (b. 1939)
from “Karpacki freski” (Carpathian frescoes), 1985
i. Lento espressivo
iv. Scherzo
vii. Finale
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
– Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659
– Toccata in D Minor, BWV 538
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
Ária, from "Bachianas Brasileiras" No. 5
Ramon Noble (1920-1999)
Toccatina
Florence Beatrice Price (1887-1953)
– Fantasy, from Suite No. 1
– In Quiet Mood
– Toccato, from Suite No. 1
Jacob Adler (b. 1980)
Kosmogonik
Music of Eastern Europe and the Americas
Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728-1788)
Fantasie in G Minor
Weronika Ratusińska (b. 1977)
Vivace, from “Trzy szkice” (Three sketches), 2010
Lesia Vasylivna Dychko (b. 1939)
from “Karpacki freski” (Carpathian frescoes), 1985
i. Lento espressivo
iv. Scherzo
vii. Finale
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
– Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659
– Toccata in D Minor, BWV 538
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
Ária, from "Bachianas Brasileiras" No. 5
Ramon Noble (1920-1999)
Toccatina
Florence Beatrice Price (1887-1953)
– Fantasy, from Suite No. 1
– In Quiet Mood
– Toccato, from Suite No. 1
Jacob Adler (b. 1980)
Kosmogonik
All of our concerts are FREE and open to the public – No tickets or passes are required. Seating is first-come first-served starting at 7:15 PM. Two seats will be reserved at each Eccles Organ Festival concert for all Friends in the Benefactor and Patron tiers, and four seats will be reserved for all Friends in the Ambassador and Founder tiers, until 7:45 PM.
Ilona Kubiaczyk-Adler is a concert organist, pianist, conductor, artistic director, and educator. She focuses on bringing the joy, beauty, and tradition of professional music making to the 21st century, and shining the light on music from Eastern Europe and Americas, and works of underrepresented composers. As a performing artist she has traveled through most of Europe, and South and North America.
Ilona’s most exciting professional engagements happened at the Oude Kerk, Orgelpark and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam; St. Laurenskerk in Alkmaar; Issue Project Room in NY; with the US Air Force Strings at St. John’s Episcopal in Washington DC; Goteborg International Organ Academy in Sweden; Westfield Conference at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, Annual Organ Conference at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Musforum Conference 2025, Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, and Luther College in Iowa.
She graduated from three conservatoria: Academy of Music in Lodz, Poland (MA), Conservatorium van Amsterdam, the Netherlands (MM), and Arizona State University (DMA). She worked as an Assistant Professor of Organ at the Academy of Music in Lodz, and as a Research Assistant at ASU.
Ilona currently serves as the Director of Music & Organist at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church in Scottsdale, AZ. She runs a large music program, plays the masterful Richards, Fowkes op. 14 organ, and promotes high quality performers in the Pinnacle Concert Series as its Artistic Director. Ilona founded the Organ Scholar program, which educates young musicians. She is a member of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, the American Choral Directors Association, and the American Guild of Organists, in which she served as the Education Chair and Board Member in the Central Arizona Chapter for 8 years.
Her album Antique Sound Palette, recorded on the 1719 Hildebrandt organ in Paslek, Poland, as well as the recordings she made on the Pinnacle organ were featured on American Public Radio. The album can be found on all major streaming platforms.
Ilona’s most exciting professional engagements happened at the Oude Kerk, Orgelpark and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam; St. Laurenskerk in Alkmaar; Issue Project Room in NY; with the US Air Force Strings at St. John’s Episcopal in Washington DC; Goteborg International Organ Academy in Sweden; Westfield Conference at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, Annual Organ Conference at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Musforum Conference 2025, Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, and Luther College in Iowa.
She graduated from three conservatoria: Academy of Music in Lodz, Poland (MA), Conservatorium van Amsterdam, the Netherlands (MM), and Arizona State University (DMA). She worked as an Assistant Professor of Organ at the Academy of Music in Lodz, and as a Research Assistant at ASU.
Ilona currently serves as the Director of Music & Organist at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church in Scottsdale, AZ. She runs a large music program, plays the masterful Richards, Fowkes op. 14 organ, and promotes high quality performers in the Pinnacle Concert Series as its Artistic Director. Ilona founded the Organ Scholar program, which educates young musicians. She is a member of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, the American Choral Directors Association, and the American Guild of Organists, in which she served as the Education Chair and Board Member in the Central Arizona Chapter for 8 years.
Her album Antique Sound Palette, recorded on the 1719 Hildebrandt organ in Paslek, Poland, as well as the recordings she made on the Pinnacle organ were featured on American Public Radio. The album can be found on all major streaming platforms.
Program Notes
by Dr. Kenneth Udy, University of Utah
with Ilona Kubiaczyk-Adler
MUSIC OF EASTERN EUROPE AND THE AMERICAS
LATVIA
Müthel studied with his father in his native Mölln, near Hamburg. At the age of 19, he was appointed organist to the court of Duke Christian Ludwig II in Mecklenburg. Then in May 1750, the Duke granted Müthel a leave of absence to study with Bach in Leipzig. Unfortunately, Bach died three months after Müthel’s arrival, making him Bach’s last pupil. Müthel returned briefly to the ducal court before immigrating to Riga, Latvia in 1753. There he served as organist of St. Peter’s Cathedral until his death. His highly individual (even bizarre) organ compositions were only written down as sketches and remained unpublished until 1981. The technically challenging Fantasie in G Minor, one of six elaborate organ fantasies, conveys a glimpse of Müthel’s improvisational artistry and is a striking example of the emotional Sturm und Drang [storm and stress] style expressed by complex ornamentation and dramatic contrasts in dynamic and mood. In it he pays homage to his teacher with the opening reminiscent of Bach’s Fantasia in G Minor, BWV 542, and the pedal solos that recall the Toccata in C Major, BWV 564. The structure resembles that of a rondo of dotted rhythms alternating with longer sequences, as well as unison passages alternating with arioso sections.
POLAND
Weronika Ratusińska-Zamuszko first studied composition in Warsaw and subsequently as a postgraduate student in The Hague. In 2009 she earned her doctoral degree and was appointed as an assistant professor at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. Known for blending contemporary classical and experimental techniques, her pieces have won multiple composition awards and have been performed at numerous concerts and festivals throughout Europe. Her Trzy szkice [Three Sketches] date from 2010. Vivace is the last of these short movements and is written in a lively and bright minimalist style, reminiscent of the restless 16th-note movement in Bach’s Prelude in C Minor, BWV 847 from The Well-tempered Clavier..
UKRAINE
Lesia Dychko was born in Kyiv and holds degrees in music theory and composition. She has taught at numerous universities in Ukraine and is part of a group of Ukrainian composers known as the Neofolkloric Wave. Her music blends classical traditions with elements of Ukrainian folk music. The Carpathian mountains are a significant landmark in Central and Eastern Europe. In 1985 Dychko composed Karpacki freski [Carpathian Frescoes] portraying her connection to the Carpathians. The first, fourth, and seventh are heard this evening: Lento espressivo uses a slow tempo to evoke the grand and serene landscapes of the Carpathians, borrowing from the lyrical folk melodies of this region; Scherzo starts and ends with lighter, more playful sections filled with energy and whimsy, while its contrasting middle section uses a simple folk motive to create an intense buildup culminating in rhythmic clusters; and Finale brings the piece to a dramatic conclusion reflecting the majesty of the mountainous terrain by quoting motives from previous movements and alternating them with short fugal sections and trumpet calls.
The next four pieces are purposely paired in order to display the influence of J. S. Bach’s music outside of Europe.
GERMANY
Originally composed between 1708 and 1717, the so-called “Great 18” chorale preludes bridge Bach’s early Weimar years to his later career in Leipzig, where he revised and expanded them. Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland [Come Now, Savior of the Nations], BWV 659 is the first of three settings of this chorale melody included in the “Great 18” and is one of Bach’s most justly famous. The chorale is traditionally associated with Advent and is derived from an earlier plainchant, Veni redemptor gentium. Bach adorns the melody in a chromatic and highly ornamented manner, accompanied by a walking bass line in the pedal. The piece ends with a tonic pedal point supporting a melodic descent of an octave and a half, paying homage to Buxtehude’s earlier setting of the same chorale.
Like the preceding chorale prelude, the Toccata in D Minor, BWV 538 was also composed in Weimar and then resurfaced during the Leipzig years for a 1732 organ dedication in Kassel. To distinguish it from the “other” more famous Toccata in D Minor, German musicologist Griepenkerl gave it the nickname “Dorian” since Bach did not include a B-flat in the key signature. Bach composed the piece sometime between 1714 and 1717– the same time period he had created several organ transcriptions of Vivaldi concertos. Not surprisingly, the work reflects the style of Vivaldi’s concertos with contrast between tutti and ripieno and a continuous exchange of parts and manuals. Indeed, it is one of only two organ preludes in which Bach designated the use of two manuals and precise manual changes. Filled with perpetual energy unsurpassed by few of his other organ pieces, the entire toccata is based on a single half-measure motive to create an uninterrupted torrent of 16th notes.
BRAZIL
A lifelong resident of Rio de Janeiro, Villa-Lobos was the most recognized Brazilian composer of the 20th century. His picture was even on the 500 Cruzados bill! Originally composed in 1938 for soprano and eight cellos, the lyrical and haunting Ária in A Minor is the first movement from the fifth of nine suites of Bachianas Brasileiras [Bach-inspired Brazilian Pieces]. It is his best-known work, blending Brazilian folk elements with the style of Bach. The beautiful melody is adorned with a meticulously-composed accompaniment heavily influenced by the baroque form of chorale prelude. The piece was arranged for organ solo by Belgian-American composer Camil Van Hulse.
MEXICO
Although Ramón Noble was Mexico’s most prolific 20th-century organ composer, most of his organ works remain unpublished. As both a concert organist and guitarist, he performed throughout Mexico, the United States, and Europe. He was particularly active in choral music and even once supervised a recording of Mexican songs by the Tabernacle Choir. Local organist James Welch edited two collections of Noble’s organ works and included the short Toccatina in D Minor composed in 1977. It is in a lively 3/8 dance meter cast in ABA form with the middle section in the parallel major. With its melodic motives and rhythms, Toccatina represents the culture it come from, while borrowing the relentless movement of 16th notes from Bach’s toccata style writing.
UNITED STATES
Florence Price, a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, once wrote in a letter, “I have two handicaps–those of sex and race. I am a woman, and I have some Negro blood in my veins ... I should like to be judged on merit alone.” Undaunted, she earned degrees in organ performance and piano teaching at the New England Conservatory under the guise of being Hispanic (which succeeded due to her mother’s Latin American heritage), with additional training at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. Her music is unique as it blends classical traditions with elements of African-American influences. She composed some 300 works, and her career blossomed in the 1930s and 1940s during the Chicago Renaissance. In 1933, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered her Symphony in E Minor, making it the first composition by an African-American woman to be played by a professional orchestra. Despite its success, her music all but disappeared after her death. In the 1990s Calvert Johnson extensively researched her manuscripts and published five volumes of her organ music, which is now experiencing a revival. One of her most complex works is the four-movement Suite composed in 1942. The first movement, Fantasy, opens with syncopated rhythm and jazz-like harmonies often found in her compositions. Like many African American spirituals, the melody of the final Toccato [sic] is pentatonic and its syncopated rhythms recall the juba, a lively dance originally from West Africa and brought to the United States by African slaves. This evening between these two movements is heard In Quiet Mood composed in 1941. It is a dreamy piece filled with lovely melodies supported by tranquil, undulating harmonies and a sustained pedal.
Jacob Adler (the spouse of tonight’s organist) authored the popular rhythm textbook Wheels Within Wheels and teaches at Arizona State University and Paradise Valley Community College. He studied organ performance at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Since 2013, he has directed the Openscore Ensemble, which performs contemporary classical music and creative arrangements of compositions and improvisations. In 2012, Adler wrote Kosmogonik for his wife. It is an arrangement of “Unrequited” by American Grammy-winning jazz pianist Brad Mehldau (b. 1970) from a jazz trio album recorded in 1998. Tonight’s organist commented,
Kosmogonik is partially written down and partially improvised from the original lead sheet. The composition makes several references to well-known standards of piano and organ literature–some of my and Jacob’s favorites by Chopin, Alain, Messiaen, Reger, Liszt, Glass, and Ligeti.
Kosmogonik was a remarkably powerful engineer robot ‘who lit stars to dispel the darkness’ in the mind of Stanisław Lem (1921–2006), a successful Polish science fiction writer whose books have been translated into 41 languages. Kosmogonik is also the middle name of our firstborn son. (The piece was conceived at the beginning of my pregnancy.) While our son is now a teenager, I keep bringing this piece back in my programs because it creatively merges the American and European traditions.
by Dr. Kenneth Udy, University of Utah
with Ilona Kubiaczyk-Adler
MUSIC OF EASTERN EUROPE AND THE AMERICAS
LATVIA
Müthel studied with his father in his native Mölln, near Hamburg. At the age of 19, he was appointed organist to the court of Duke Christian Ludwig II in Mecklenburg. Then in May 1750, the Duke granted Müthel a leave of absence to study with Bach in Leipzig. Unfortunately, Bach died three months after Müthel’s arrival, making him Bach’s last pupil. Müthel returned briefly to the ducal court before immigrating to Riga, Latvia in 1753. There he served as organist of St. Peter’s Cathedral until his death. His highly individual (even bizarre) organ compositions were only written down as sketches and remained unpublished until 1981. The technically challenging Fantasie in G Minor, one of six elaborate organ fantasies, conveys a glimpse of Müthel’s improvisational artistry and is a striking example of the emotional Sturm und Drang [storm and stress] style expressed by complex ornamentation and dramatic contrasts in dynamic and mood. In it he pays homage to his teacher with the opening reminiscent of Bach’s Fantasia in G Minor, BWV 542, and the pedal solos that recall the Toccata in C Major, BWV 564. The structure resembles that of a rondo of dotted rhythms alternating with longer sequences, as well as unison passages alternating with arioso sections.
POLAND
Weronika Ratusińska-Zamuszko first studied composition in Warsaw and subsequently as a postgraduate student in The Hague. In 2009 she earned her doctoral degree and was appointed as an assistant professor at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. Known for blending contemporary classical and experimental techniques, her pieces have won multiple composition awards and have been performed at numerous concerts and festivals throughout Europe. Her Trzy szkice [Three Sketches] date from 2010. Vivace is the last of these short movements and is written in a lively and bright minimalist style, reminiscent of the restless 16th-note movement in Bach’s Prelude in C Minor, BWV 847 from The Well-tempered Clavier..
UKRAINE
Lesia Dychko was born in Kyiv and holds degrees in music theory and composition. She has taught at numerous universities in Ukraine and is part of a group of Ukrainian composers known as the Neofolkloric Wave. Her music blends classical traditions with elements of Ukrainian folk music. The Carpathian mountains are a significant landmark in Central and Eastern Europe. In 1985 Dychko composed Karpacki freski [Carpathian Frescoes] portraying her connection to the Carpathians. The first, fourth, and seventh are heard this evening: Lento espressivo uses a slow tempo to evoke the grand and serene landscapes of the Carpathians, borrowing from the lyrical folk melodies of this region; Scherzo starts and ends with lighter, more playful sections filled with energy and whimsy, while its contrasting middle section uses a simple folk motive to create an intense buildup culminating in rhythmic clusters; and Finale brings the piece to a dramatic conclusion reflecting the majesty of the mountainous terrain by quoting motives from previous movements and alternating them with short fugal sections and trumpet calls.
The next four pieces are purposely paired in order to display the influence of J. S. Bach’s music outside of Europe.
GERMANY
Originally composed between 1708 and 1717, the so-called “Great 18” chorale preludes bridge Bach’s early Weimar years to his later career in Leipzig, where he revised and expanded them. Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland [Come Now, Savior of the Nations], BWV 659 is the first of three settings of this chorale melody included in the “Great 18” and is one of Bach’s most justly famous. The chorale is traditionally associated with Advent and is derived from an earlier plainchant, Veni redemptor gentium. Bach adorns the melody in a chromatic and highly ornamented manner, accompanied by a walking bass line in the pedal. The piece ends with a tonic pedal point supporting a melodic descent of an octave and a half, paying homage to Buxtehude’s earlier setting of the same chorale.
Like the preceding chorale prelude, the Toccata in D Minor, BWV 538 was also composed in Weimar and then resurfaced during the Leipzig years for a 1732 organ dedication in Kassel. To distinguish it from the “other” more famous Toccata in D Minor, German musicologist Griepenkerl gave it the nickname “Dorian” since Bach did not include a B-flat in the key signature. Bach composed the piece sometime between 1714 and 1717– the same time period he had created several organ transcriptions of Vivaldi concertos. Not surprisingly, the work reflects the style of Vivaldi’s concertos with contrast between tutti and ripieno and a continuous exchange of parts and manuals. Indeed, it is one of only two organ preludes in which Bach designated the use of two manuals and precise manual changes. Filled with perpetual energy unsurpassed by few of his other organ pieces, the entire toccata is based on a single half-measure motive to create an uninterrupted torrent of 16th notes.
BRAZIL
A lifelong resident of Rio de Janeiro, Villa-Lobos was the most recognized Brazilian composer of the 20th century. His picture was even on the 500 Cruzados bill! Originally composed in 1938 for soprano and eight cellos, the lyrical and haunting Ária in A Minor is the first movement from the fifth of nine suites of Bachianas Brasileiras [Bach-inspired Brazilian Pieces]. It is his best-known work, blending Brazilian folk elements with the style of Bach. The beautiful melody is adorned with a meticulously-composed accompaniment heavily influenced by the baroque form of chorale prelude. The piece was arranged for organ solo by Belgian-American composer Camil Van Hulse.
MEXICO
Although Ramón Noble was Mexico’s most prolific 20th-century organ composer, most of his organ works remain unpublished. As both a concert organist and guitarist, he performed throughout Mexico, the United States, and Europe. He was particularly active in choral music and even once supervised a recording of Mexican songs by the Tabernacle Choir. Local organist James Welch edited two collections of Noble’s organ works and included the short Toccatina in D Minor composed in 1977. It is in a lively 3/8 dance meter cast in ABA form with the middle section in the parallel major. With its melodic motives and rhythms, Toccatina represents the culture it come from, while borrowing the relentless movement of 16th notes from Bach’s toccata style writing.
UNITED STATES
Florence Price, a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, once wrote in a letter, “I have two handicaps–those of sex and race. I am a woman, and I have some Negro blood in my veins ... I should like to be judged on merit alone.” Undaunted, she earned degrees in organ performance and piano teaching at the New England Conservatory under the guise of being Hispanic (which succeeded due to her mother’s Latin American heritage), with additional training at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. Her music is unique as it blends classical traditions with elements of African-American influences. She composed some 300 works, and her career blossomed in the 1930s and 1940s during the Chicago Renaissance. In 1933, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered her Symphony in E Minor, making it the first composition by an African-American woman to be played by a professional orchestra. Despite its success, her music all but disappeared after her death. In the 1990s Calvert Johnson extensively researched her manuscripts and published five volumes of her organ music, which is now experiencing a revival. One of her most complex works is the four-movement Suite composed in 1942. The first movement, Fantasy, opens with syncopated rhythm and jazz-like harmonies often found in her compositions. Like many African American spirituals, the melody of the final Toccato [sic] is pentatonic and its syncopated rhythms recall the juba, a lively dance originally from West Africa and brought to the United States by African slaves. This evening between these two movements is heard In Quiet Mood composed in 1941. It is a dreamy piece filled with lovely melodies supported by tranquil, undulating harmonies and a sustained pedal.
Jacob Adler (the spouse of tonight’s organist) authored the popular rhythm textbook Wheels Within Wheels and teaches at Arizona State University and Paradise Valley Community College. He studied organ performance at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Since 2013, he has directed the Openscore Ensemble, which performs contemporary classical music and creative arrangements of compositions and improvisations. In 2012, Adler wrote Kosmogonik for his wife. It is an arrangement of “Unrequited” by American Grammy-winning jazz pianist Brad Mehldau (b. 1970) from a jazz trio album recorded in 1998. Tonight’s organist commented,
Kosmogonik is partially written down and partially improvised from the original lead sheet. The composition makes several references to well-known standards of piano and organ literature–some of my and Jacob’s favorites by Chopin, Alain, Messiaen, Reger, Liszt, Glass, and Ligeti.
Kosmogonik was a remarkably powerful engineer robot ‘who lit stars to dispel the darkness’ in the mind of Stanisław Lem (1921–2006), a successful Polish science fiction writer whose books have been translated into 41 languages. Kosmogonik is also the middle name of our firstborn son. (The piece was conceived at the beginning of my pregnancy.) While our son is now a teenager, I keep bringing this piece back in my programs because it creatively merges the American and European traditions.
