​One of my students is giving his very first organ recital—Steven Richardson Severin will play on the Sunday after Easter, April 8 at 2:00 pm at Central Union Church. However, he is no novice; he came to me with Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in piano and decided to make the switch to organ. As Karl Bachman said, “he has taken like a duck to water!”

Raised in central Oʻahu and currently residing in Waikīkī, Steven is the organist at historic St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Kapahulu Avenue. He enjoys a varied career as a musician, working as a pianist with Hawaiʻi Youth Opera Chorus, choral artist with the Oʻahu Choral Society, and choral classroom assistant at Kamehameha Schools’ Kapālama campus. He holds degrees in piano performance from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He is a recipient of the Don Conover organ scholarship from the Hawaii Chapter American Guild of Organists.

His ambitious program includes “Psalm Prelude No. 1” by Herbert Howells, “Miroir” by Ad Wammes, the complete “Ascension Suite” by Olivier Messiaen and J. S. Bach’s “Passacaglia and Fugue.” No small little ditties!

The recital is sponsored by the Hawai‘i Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and is free.