28th Annual Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival Hartford at Trinity College

Elina Khindova ’27

Contributing Writer

On Sept. 26 to 27, the annual Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival Hartford took place at the Trinity College Chapel. Open to the public and free of charge, the festival aims to “support and encourage young organists in the earliest stages of their education and careers, and to increase appreciation of organ music in the general public,” according to its website. The festival operates annually, but alternates between a competition for high schoolers and young professionals aged 26 or younger. 

The festival opened on Friday, Sept. 26, with a recital by Jacob Gruss, the first prize and audience prize winner of the 2024 ASOFH Young Professional Competition. It continued on Saturday morning with the finale of the 2025 Biennial High School Competition, one of the most prestigious events in the country for young organists.

The three finalists are chosen by a jury of organists: Nicholas Capozzoli, Michelle Horsley and Anna Pan. High school-aged organists are required to submit a repertoire of classical and modern works as well as a hymn. The three finalists are sponsored to travel to Trinity for the final competition. The 2025 finalists included Henry Dangerfield from Minnesota, who competed in 2023 and won the David C. Spicer Hymn Playing Prize and the audience prize, Philip Tummescheit from Connecticut who won first prize at the 2025 L. Cameron Johnson Memorial Organ Competition, and Kalan Warusa from Virginia, who won first-prize at the 2025 UNCSA-Salem High School Organ Competition.

Each organist performed two required works: J.S. Bach’s “Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541” and Charles Marie Widor’s “Andante Sostenuto” from “Symphonie Gothique, Op. 70,” along with a contrasting piece of their own choice. Prizes were announced over a light lunch in the Chapel South Cloister. The jury, composed of organists Anne Laver, Colin MacKnight and Brenda Portman, awarded first prize to Dangerfield, a 17-year-old Minnesota resident and accomplished young organist who studies with Catherine Rodland. He additionally earned the David C. Spicer Hymn Playing Prize for the second time in his career. The second place prize and the audience prize went to Tummescheit while Warusa took third place. Dangerfield’s first-place prize granted him $7,500 with $750 added for the Spicer Award, Tummescheit won $3,500 along with $750 for the audience prize and Warusa earned $1,500.

On Sept. 27, following the announcement of the winners, the Trinity College Chapel hosted the festival concert, “Music for Organ, Choir, Oboe, Harp & Percussion.” The concert brought together Trinity’s Director of Chapel Music and ASOFH Artistic Director Christopher Houlihan ‘09 at the organ, artists playing the harp, oboe and percussion and the voices of four combined choirs: Trinity’s Chapel Singers, Chorus Angelicus and Gaudeamus, the Schola Cantorum of the Cathedral of Saint Joseph and guest singers from the adult choir of St. James’s Episcopal Church. The musicians were conducted by Gabriel Löfvall, director of music for St. Patrick-St. Anthony Church in downtown Hartford and the men’s choir conductor for the Connecticut Children’s Chorus.