PRESS AND COMMENTS
"Tarrant played with absolute authority, a fine ear for sonorities and, where called for, real panache."
Dallas Morning News
"For reasons that now mystify me, the Seventh of Widor’s 10 organ symphonies remains among the less-performed entries in the series...in the person of Jeremy David Tarrant, the organist of St. Paul’s Cathedral, we have as thrilling and moving a performance of this work as I’ve ever heard, which perfectly captures the ethos of each movement. The opening Moderato is majestic yet energetic; the Chorale calmly contemplative; the Allegretto (Andante-Allegro) coyly playful; the Allegro ma non troppo seriously purposeful; the Lento suitably solemn; the Finale single-minded in earnest determination.
"The smaller works are likewise played to a fare-thee-well. The Impromptu [Louis Vierne] is nervously playful; Clair de lune establishes an atmosphere of serene clam without being eclipsed by Debussy’s famed eponymous piano piece; the Toccata bristles with vitality and finger-busting fireworks. This is a superb release; might we dare hope for a complete Widor organ symphony cycle from Tarrant? Enthusiastically recommended."
Fanfare Magazine, September-October, 2018
"Tarrant shows it off [organ in First Presbyterian Church of Kirkwood] in performances characterised by attention to detail and a fine sense of the long line."
Choir and Organ, July-August, 2018
"Cleary Jeremy David Tarrant has a great love and respect for this intriguing music." [review of Widor VII recording]
Organists' Review, September 2018
"His [Tarrant's] playing is musical, virtuosic, and committed."
American Record Guide
"I know I speak on behalf of the entire enthusiastic audience when I say thank you for the skillfully executed and musically compelling recital."
Peter Kurdziel, Director of Music Music Under the Dome,
The Basilica of Saint Adalbert, Grand Rapids, Michigan
“Powerfully artistic performance!”
Kalamazoo Bach Festival
“....a compelling reading of this great work.” [Widor, Symphonie gothique, Op. 70]
The Diapason
“….we were treated to some music of Charles-Marie Widor, …the perfect illustrator of the symphonic style on the organ. The talented organist, Jeremy David Tarrant, gave a remarkable interpretation of this composer on the grand instrument of Meaux, where such music is a perfect fit."
Bulletin de l’Association Valéran de Héman (Les Amis des orgues de Meaux), France
“....one of those not-so-common organists who combines a solid technique with extraordinary musicianship.”
Dale Adelman, Canon for Music, St. Philip’s Cathedral, Atlanta
“I consider Jeremy David Tarrant to be one of our finest talents. He has a brilliant technique and is an excellent musician. I always enjoy his programs and try to hear him whenever possible.”
Janice Beck, American concert organist
“Elegant, wonderful!..the whole room was dancing!”
Ottumwa National Organ Competition, Ottumwa, Iowa
"Jeremy David Tarrant is one of the most talented young American organists I have heard. He is especially involved in the performance of French music which he plays with great flair and a scrupulous exactitude concerning colors, tempi and organ touch"
Marie-Louise Langlais, Professor of Organ, Paris Conservatory and the Schola Cantorum, France
“Jeremy David Tarrant negotiated the mammoth ‘Prélude, Andante et Toccata’ of André Fleury with ease.”
The Diapason
“....warm and communicative, technically secure and totally convincing. His dedication to the music was evident in his masterly performance.”
H. Scott Raab, Organist and Choirmaster, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Oklahoma City
Jeremy David Tarrant closed the concert with a thrilling performance of the ‘Choral’ and ‘Finale’ from Widor’s seventh symphony.”
The Diapason
"On Sunday, November 21, 2010, in a continuing observance of the twenty fifth anniversary of the concert series, Music at Saint Paul’s (St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Flint, Michigan), Jeremy David Tarrant, Organist and Canon Precentor of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in Detroit, presented a recital honoring the Flint organization’s achievement in a program of music by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Bach and Widor, including the latter’s grand Symphonie VII.
Mr. Tarrant, no stranger to the vast tonal resources of the Florence Whiting Dalton Memorial Pipe Organ, (Jerroll Adams, organ builder) revealed facets and hues of tonal nuance which gave new life to such movements as the Adagio of the Mendelssohn Sonata II and especially the Schumann Sketches which have become his signature pieces in recent years, much in the style of the late, revered Robert Glasgow, his mentor. The much programmed Allegro and Fugue of the Mendelssohn sonata were refreshing to hear in contrast to the often routine treatments of these pieces.
The first half of the program concluded with the Bach Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541, a fitting blessing upon the previous Mendelssohn and Schumann performances as if to pronounce a pater familias benediction upon the foregoing. With so much conversation and didactic peroration about performance style and period practice it was a luminous conclusion to the first half of the concert as Mr. Tarrant found the perfect balance between articulate clarity, linear shape, cohesion and direction. The G Major, a veritable concerto in itself, not unlike the Bach’s Italian Concerto for harpsichord, offers the player the opportunity to be both concertato and ripieno, a facet of the work in which Mr. Tarrant was enjoying the interplay of ideas in such a way as to engage the audience which rewarded him appropriately and appreciatively.
The second half of the afternoon was devoted to the Symphonie VII of Charles-Marie Widor in a premier performance for Flint audiences of this grand and great work. The Dalton Memorial Organ is most elegantly suited to the registrational demands of this work. As with all the Widor and Vierne “Symphonies” which are actually suites of several movements, the player’s imagination and intuition as to how to realize the notes on the printed score at the particular instrument at hand are maximally challenging and the success of the performance is measured thereby.
The Widor VII (said to be the composer’s favorite) is a large five movement canvas in which anything less than a penetrating insight to the events, and events within events, developments, episodes and variations within the score would render the listening experience prolix and tedious. The Dalton organ’s magnificent range of color possibilities constitutes a major challenge of taste and discernment to the performer of so large a composition as this. This afternoon’s performance was nothing less than a revelation in which Mr. Tarrant’s sustained and focused concentration, without which a full performance of this work would become diffuse, carried the day to a triumphant conclusion, in which the full plot of the Widor VII became clear, with all raison d’etre glowingly revealed: a stunning capstone to an afternoon of memorable music making; an afternoon which has become the hallmark of Mr. Tarrant’s work and a fitting tribute to the twenty fifth year of the Saint Paul’s concert series."
G. Donald Kaye, Director, Music at St. Paul’s concert series, Flint, Michigan