Kevin Birch takes us on a journey of musical discovery performing keyboard music of the 17th and 18th Centuries on clavichords by Martin Kather (Hamburg - 2020) after Praetorius (1621) and by Jeremy Adams (Danvers, MA - 1996) after Manuel de Sousa Carniero (1796).

Works will include the Chromatic Fantasy of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), Passacaglia (from Musicalischer Parnassus) of Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (c. 1656-1746), Partita 'Auf die Mayerin' of Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667), and Prelude, Fugue and Allegro, BWV 998 of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).

Birch will introduce the program with a description and historical overview of the clavichords.

Kevin Birch began organ studies with Yuko Hayashi on the C. B. Fisk organ at Old West Church in 1979 and earned the Bachelor of Music Degree at New England Conservatory (with Distinction in Performance) in 1987. He continued studies with Klaas Bolt at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam and later with Delores Bruch at the University of Iowa where he earned the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees.

Since 1992 he has served as Director of Music at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor, Maine where he also serves as Executive Director of St. John’s Organ Society - a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and stewardship of E. & G. G. Hook’s Opus 288, built for St. John’s Church in 1860.

He has performed solo recitals in the US, Canada, Europe, and in South America, and for several national conventions of the Organ Historical Society. He is especially devoted to the many fine historic organs in Maine on which he enjoys frequent opportunities to study and perform.

Kevin is also devoted to the art of the clavichord - an instrument long associated with the organ, especially in Germany and Scandinavia - and is a member of the Dutch Clavichord Society, the German Clavichord Society and the Boston Clavichord Society. Recent projects include solo clavichord recitals for the German Clavichord Society in Cologne, Germany, the Boston Clavichord Society, and lectures/recitals on “The Clavichord and the Organ - Companions for Centuries” at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, and at Oberlin Conservatory in Oberlin, OH.