Brenda Portman - Pilgrimages: Organ Music of Rachel Laurin Inspired by Sacred Themes (2016)

Brenda Portman is the Resident Organist at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church in Cincinnati and the Executive Director of the church’s renowned Organ Concert Series. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree (2016) in organ performance from the University of Cincin­nati – College-Conservatory of Music, where she received a full scholarship as first prize winner of the Strader Organ Com­pe­tition and served as teaching assistant for the organ department. She holds music degrees from Northwestern University (2003) and Wheaton College (2002) and has studied with John Behnke, Edward Zimmerman, Douglas Cleveland, Marilyn Mason, Roberta Gary, and Michael Unger.

In October 2014, Brenda Portman was the only American woman to compete in the Canadian International Organ Competition in Montréal. Her performance there led to a friendship and collaboration with Canadian composer Rachel Laurin, out of which grew this recording of Laurin’s music on the 88-rank Casavant organ at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church. Dr. Portman has been a prizewinner in numerous other competitions, including first place in the Arthur Poister Organ Competition (2007), first place in the Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition (2006), and third place in the Rodgers North American Classical Organ Competition (2012). She has participated in the British and French Organ Music Seminars, winning first place in the Bank District British/American Organ Competition (2009) and performing a winner’s recital at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. She has also been a finalist in the Fort Wayne National Organ-Playing Competition (2010) and a semi-finalist in the AGO’s National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance (2010).

Generated from her doctoral research on minimalism and twentieth-century Dutch organ music, Dr. Portman’s article The Eclectic Landscape of Ride in a High-Speed Train, about the above-named composition by Ad Wammes, was published in December 2015 in The Diapason. Another article, Minimalism or Not? A Closer Look at Ad Wammes’s “Miroir,” was accepted for a later publication date by The American Organist.

Brenda Portman previously recorded a CD of organ works of Edwin T. Childs entitled All Might and Majesty (2009) on the Schantz organ at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois. She commissioned Dr. Childs to write a new multi-movement organ work (Pentecost Suite) which she premiered in June 2014 for the tenth anniversary of the Organ Concert Series at Hyde Park Church. Also a composer, Brenda Portman writes primarily sacred choral, vocal, and organ works. Her concert settings of hymns for solo voice and piano have been highly acclaimed by many professional singers, and three hymn preludes for organ were included in the Bayoubüchlein (published by Selah) for the 2016 AGO convention in Houston. She also won an award in 2014 for writing the music to a hymn commissioned for the 300th anniversary of Bruton Parish Episcopal Church in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Brenda Portman lives in Cincinnati with her husband Patrick and three children.