Award-winning organist Amanda Mole will present a wide-ranging recital in Binghamton, showcasing music from across centuries and national styles.
Mole, who currently serves as acting interim university organist at Cornell University, described a busy and rewarding year filling in for colleagues on sabbatical. “I teach students, give lectures, oversee the instrument collection, and help run concert series,” she said. “It’s fairly busy, but I love it. It’s been absolutely amazing.”
Her responsibilities include caring for four very different organs on campus, from a 1940 Aeolian-Skinner instrument to an 18th-century Italian organ requiring careful climate control. “You get all these wonderful instruments without even traveling to Europe,” Mole said. “It’s quite the privilege.”
That deep familiarity with instruments informs her approach to performance. “Every organ is like a person—they’re unique,” she explained. “Part of my job is to show the strengths of each instrument and what sounds really great there.”
For her Binghamton program, Mole has chosen repertoire tailored to the local instrument, including works by Felix Mendelssohn, Max Reger, Louis Vierne, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Robert Schumann. The concert opens and closes with settings of the chorale “Wachet auf,” including Mendelssohn’s St. Paul overture in transcription and Reger’s expansive chorale fantasy.
“I’m really excited about this program,” Mole said. “We’ll hear the chorale come back again and again in different ways, from a solemn hymn setting to a fugue that just comes alive.” In between, she has included what she calls “a little French trifle”—the Adagio from Vierne’s Third Symphony—alongside Bach’s E-flat major Prelude and Fugue and lesser-known Schumann works originally written for pedal piano.
Mole’s path to the organ began with its sheer complexity. “I’ve always had a lot of energy,” she said with a laugh. “What appealed to me was the pedals—I immediately wanted to play a solo with my feet.” That sense of challenge still drives her today. “It’s so complicated and exciting—you’re never bored.”
If pressed to name a favorite style, Mole points to German Romantic repertoire. “If I had to choose, it would be everything from Mendelssohn to Reger,” she said. “But it really depends on the instrument—you choose what will let it shine.”
Amanda Mole will perform on Sunday, April 12, at 5 p.m. at Trinity Memorial Episcopal Church. For more information, visit Trinity Memorial Episcopal Church.