In September of 2016 Chronicler musical, La Liberté reviewed Concert Organist Sarah Svendsen’s playing of the Jongen Organ Concerto with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra as “greatly virtuosic.” Svendsen is a graduate of the Yale School of Music and has performed in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.
Svendsen is a performer, an educator, and an academic. In her performance career, Svendsen specializes in outreach and engagement via fun interactive solo concert engagements. Sarah finds great joy in collaboration both as a soloist or in an ensemble. In November of 2019, Svendsen worked with the Winnipeg Symphony as soloist for the Poulenc Organ Concerto, and her organ duo, Organized Crime Duo, is well-known for its athletic, inspiring, and always silly stage performances. Svendsen has been recorded and featured by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) YouTube Channel in a performance of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in d minor and has been broadcast on CBC Radio 2 for her ensemble work (2015 Luminato Festival production of Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s Apocalypsis, Solo Organist).
In her education initiatives, Svendsen is focused on developing engagement and outreach opportunities for organ appreciation, as well as researching and disseminating vital information on occupational health and safety to student and professional musicians and organists. Svendsen is the Curriculum Design and Program Coordinator for the Summer Organ Academy of the Royal Canadian College of Organists (RCCO), and serves on the RCCO’s National Strategic Planning Committee. In her academic work, Svendsen specializes in the study of musician and organist occupational health and safety, the latter of which serves as her dissertation topic at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music, where she is a Doctoral Candidate. Sarah was born and raised in rural Nova Scotia, Canada.
