- David S. Boe Associate Professor of Organ
- Chair, Organ Department
Education
- DMA in organ, Peabody Conservatory of Music
- GPD in organ, Peabody Conservatory of Music
- MMus in piano, Peabody Conservatory of Music
- AD in organ, Oberlin Conservatory of Music
- BMus in piano, Bob Jones University
Biography
Jonathan William Moyer maintains a dynamic career as a church musician, concert organist, and pedagogue. The Baltimore Sun has described his playing as "ever-expressive, stylish, and riveting." He is chair and assistant professor of organ at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and organist of the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland.
Moyer specializes in a vast repertoire from the renaissance to the 21st century, and has performed throughout the United States and in Europe and Japan. He has performed with numerous ensembles including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, the Oberlin Orchestra, Quire Cleveland, Concert Artists of Baltimore, and the Handel Choir of Baltimore. Recent concerts include the Pacific Lutheran University, National Convention of the American Organ Historical Society (Rochester, N.Y.), the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (Washington, D.C.), Interlochen Arts Camp, St. Sulpice (Paris), Notre Dame de Bergerac, and J.S. Bach’s complete Clavierübung III at the German Reformed Church in Budapest, Hungary. In spring 2019, Moyer will be a visiting instructor of organ at the Hochschule für Musik in Lübeck, Germany.
At the Church of the Covenant, Moyer oversees two pipe organs (E.M. Skinner/Aeolian Skinner/Holtkamp and Richards Fowkes, Op. 19) and a 47-bell Dutch carillon by Eijsbouts.
Moyer holds an artist diploma in organ from Oberlin Conservatory, where he was a student of James David Christie and Olivier Latry. He earned a doctor of musical arts and graduate performance diploma in organ from the Peabody Conservatory of Music as a student of Donald Sutherland and Gillian Weir. He also completed a master's degree in piano at Peabody as a student of Ann Schein. Moyer earned a bachelor of music in piano from Bob Jones University, where he studied with Laurence Morton. He further studied with organists Susan Landale, Marie-Claire Alain, Guy Bovet, and Michael Radulescu. In 2008, Moyer earned second prize in the Sixth International Musashino Organ Competition in Tokyo, and in 2005 he was a finalist in the St. Albans International Organ Competition. He is represented by WindWerk Artists.
In 2008, Moyer performed the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen in four recitals at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore, celebrating the centenary of the composer’s birth and the renovation of the cathedral’s organ.
Also that year, he received second prize in the Sixth International Musashino Organ Competition in Tokyo, Japan. In 2005, he was one of four finalists in the St. Albans International Organ Competition.
Moyer has served on the executive committee of the Cleveland Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. He has adjudicated for the American Guild of Organists Quimby Young Artist Competition and the National Organ Playing Competition in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The Organs of Oberlin (2019)
"Moyer revealed the composer's musical genius as vividly as his spiritual richness, taking full advantage of the cathedral's organ…Passages of rapt reflection were shaped with a keen sense of import." —The Baltimore Sun
“Moyer skillfully chose registrations that showed the range of color the instrument can produce and suited them perfectly to the music at hand…It's delightful to hear an organ recital where everything seems so right and the playing so much in the service of the instrument and the repertoire.” —ClevelandClassical
Notes
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Jonathan Moyer records CD
August 25, 2020Assistant Professor and Chair of Organ Jonathan Moyer recently completed a CD recording entitled "Voices of the Hanse" for the Gothic Catalogue with digital release on Amazon and Naxos on Aug. 28. The recording features music of 17th-century North German composers within the region of the Hanseatic League, recorded on the 1637 organ by Friederich Stellwagen (1603-1660) in the church of St. Jakobi in Lübeck. The recording was completed during Moyer's 2019 sabbatical exchange at the Musikhochschule, Lübeck. The selected composers and their works represent some of the most important churches in the Hanseatic region of northern Germany, illustrating an array of liturgical tradition, musical style, and compositional evolution.