James Kibbie
James Kibbie (born March 13, 1949) is an American concert organist, recording artist and pedagogue. He is Chair of the Organ Department at the University of Michigan. Biography. Kibbie was born in 1949 in Vinton, Iowa, USA. He graduated from Davenport West High School in 1967. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance from North Texas State University (Magna cum Laude, 1971), the Master of Music in Organ Performance from North Texas State University (1972), and the Doctor of Musical Arts in Organ Performance from the University of Michigan (1981). He won the International Organ Competition  of the Prague Spring Festival in the former Czechoslovakia in 1979 and the "Grand Prix d'Intérpretation" at the International Organ Competition "Grand Prix de Chartres" in France in 1980. He joined the University of Michigan organ faculty in 1981 and is currently Professor of Organ, Chair of the Organ Department, University Organist and Curator of the Frieze Memorial Organ in Hill Auditorium. The University of Michigan has endowed the James Kibbie Scholarship in perpetuity to support students majoring in organ and church music. Performing career. Kibbie has presented recitals, masterclasses and workshops throughout North America and Europe, including appearances at  the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, Royal Festival Hall in London, Dvořák Hall in the Rudolfinum in Prague and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. His performances have been broadcast on radio and television in the US, Canada and Europe. His recordings have been issued on a variety of labels in North American and Europe (see Discography). Since 2002 he has released annual holiday recordings on the seven-stop Létourneau mechanical-action organ in his home. Complete organ works of J.S. Bach. Kibbie performed the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach in a series of  18 recitals at the University of Michigan in 2000. From 2007 to 2009 he recorded the complete works on seven historic baroque organs in Germany built by Gottfried Silbermann, Arp Schnitger and Behrendt Huß, Tobias Heinrich Gottfried Trost, Erasmus Bielfeldt, and Zacharias Hildebrandt, with the addition of four more recently authenticated Bach works recorded in 2016. With support from Dr. Barbara Furin Sloat, the University of Michigan maintains a website providing free downloads of the recordings in MP3, AAC and full uncompressed audio formats. In 2018 James Kibbie and Daniel Forger, Professor of Mathematics and Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics at  the University of Michigan, launched a research project to apply data science to the analysis of Bach performance issues. Organ performance and data science. James Kibbie and Daniel Forger, Professor of Mathematics and Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics at the University of Michigan, lead a research team investigating how data science can be employed to analyze and understand issues of musical performance. Doctoral students Sarah Simko (Organ Performance) and Caleb Mayer (Mathematics) serve as research assistants for the project. The first phase, funded by a grant from the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS), developed a library of digitized performances of  Johann Sebastian Bach's Trio Sonatas for organ by University of Michigan faculty and students on a variety of pipe organs. The research team then developed and applied data science algorithms to analyze performance-related issues, including comparing different performances to determine features that make performances artistic, as well as the common mistakes performers make. The digitized performances will be shared with other researchers with the goal of enabling research and pedagogy in disciplines including data science, music performance, mathematics and music psychology. Other elements of the project included seminars taught by Kibbie and Forger, a study tour for University  of Michigan students to historic organs in the Netherlands and Germany, and the university's 59th Annual Organ Conference, “Building Bach: His Foundations and Futures.”