On From the Top this week, we’ll be hearing a performance by an 18-year-old organist who makes his home in Beaumont, Texas! Samuel Gaskin has been studying the organ since he was nine years old, and has already racked up some impressive credentials: in 2007 he was awarded first prize at the French Organ Music Seminar/Langlais competition in New York City, and in 2006 at age 14 he was the youngest person to be awarded first prize in the high school division of the Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition in Wethersfield, CT. In the summer of 2005, he visited Paris and performed in recital at St. Roch. Samuel is organist at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Beaumont. 

Here’s the official FTT description:

This week, from Jones Concert Hall at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, our line-up of outstanding performers includes an 18-year-old from California playing a rousing piano version of “Stars and Stripes Forever” and a 17-year-old Texan playing the great Jones Hall organ. You’ll also meet a teenager who is a touring bluegrass and Celtic musician when he’s not playing classical music, and catch up with an outstanding From the Top alumnus who now devotes his life to medicine.

Performers and Repertoire:

• Violinist and Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Yurie Mitsuhashi, 17, from Fort Lee, NJ, performs Danse Hongroise by Sergei Rachmaninoff
• Pianist Vijay Venkatesh, 18 from Laguna Niguel, CA, performs “Stars and Stripes Forever” by John Philip Sousa, arranged by Vladimir Horowitz
• Organist Samuel Gaskin, organ, 17, from College Station, TX, performs II. Fugue from Prelude & Fugue on Alain, Op. 17 by Maurice Duruflé
•  Bassoonist and 10th Anniversary Alumni Performer LaMont Barlow from New York, NY, performs I. Introduction and Allegro from Suite for Bassoon and Piano by Alexandre Tansman.
• Cellist Nathaniel Smith, 15, from Brandon, MS, performs Serenade, Op. 54, No. 2 by David Popper
• Cellist Nathaniel Smith; fiddler Mia Orosco, 16, from Lorena, TX; and guitarist Simon Stipp perform the traditional “Sally Goodin”

Tune in to KMFA for From the Top, this Saturday at 11am.