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Timothy AlbrechtProfessor Emeritus of Music
Education
- DMAEastman School of Music1978
About
Timothy Albrecht is Professor Emeritus at Emory University, having served four decades as University Organist and faculty member in both the Department of Music and the Candler School of Theology. He headed the graduate organ degree program for two decades and taught thirty summers in Vienna.
He has taught master classes across the country for many chapters of the American Guild of Organists, in Europe, Asia and the at The Juilliard School. His discography includes nine solo compact discs and he has composed twelve volumes of published Grace Notes for Organ.
New York’s American Organist hailed Timothy Albrecht, Atlanta's Emory University Organist, for his "creative, fertile imagination … electric performances ... Lisztian virtuosity.”
Recitals spanned Alaska to the Andes, Texas to Taiwan. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung cited his “ever-present artistry and virtuosity.” “Unforgettable, because inimitable," wrote the Darmstädter Beiträge zur neuen Musik. Nobel Peace Prize Winner Desmond Tutu wrote him about an upcoming performance, “I am so looking forward to that… knowing you will play as if your life depended on it!” He performed organ music of Olivier Messiaen before the Dalai Lama.
Ambidextrous and possessing perfect pitch, Albrecht first studied piano with East-European Eugenia Prekosh. Awarded entrance to Phi Beta Kappa while an Oberlin student, he then earned his doctorate and Performer’s Certificate at the Eastman School of Music and later representing the United States at the VIth International Bach Competition in Leipzig. England’s Cambridge University has conferred Life Membership on him.
Since retiring in September 2022, he has written and published four books on the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach: Exploring the Magic of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier I & II: Short Notes for Performers and Listeners (2022), Exploring the Magic: Short Notes on the Bach-Busoni Chaconne (2022), More J.S. Bach Magic! Exploring the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue BWV 903 (2023) and Bach’s Keyboard Partitas BWV 825-830: Not His First Rodeo (2024). In 2024 he also taught masterclasses at Brevard Music Institute. He continues to record Bach keyboard pieces on his YouTube Good…Better…Best! channel, which already has well over 100 Bach videos. After a lifetime visiting art museums while on recital tours, he has authored and published on Amazon Kindle a book entitled Hearing with your Eyes: A Musician Reflects on Twelve Keyboard Paintings (2025).
