Timothy AlbrechtProfessor Emeritus of Music

• DMAEastman School of Music1978
• BMOberlin Music Conservatory1973
• BAOberlin College1973

Dr. Albrecht retired in September 2022 as Emory University Professor of Music and University Organist after completing forty years of teaching and international organ recitals specializing in the works of J.S. Bach. Inducted in 2022 as Emory University Professor Emeritus, he has taught at the Italian Bach Society Conference in Turin and at the 2024 Brevard Music Center. In retirement he has also authored and published four books from the perspective of the musical performing scholar on Bach’s keyboard music (with all selections also recorded on YouTube):

* 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)
* Bach’s Keyboard Partitas BWV 825-830: Not His First Rodeo (2024).

After a lifetime visiting art museums while on recital tours, he has authored and published Hearing with your Eyes: A Musician Reflects on Twelve Keyboard Paintings (2025). He is presently writing Mining the Gold: Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

While heading the graduate organ degrees decades at Emory, Dr. Albrecht gave masterclasses across the country for chapters of the American Guild of Organists, teaching also at Juilliard, in Europe and Asia. 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 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 also performed organ music of Olivier Messiaen before the Dalai Lama. 

Ambidextrous and possessing perfect pitch, Albrecht first studied piano with East-European Eugenia Prekosh. Inducted to Phi Beta Kappa while an Oberlin student, he then taught as a sabbatical replacement at Middlebury College before commencing graduate study, earning the Performer’s Certificate  at the Eastman School of Music. He later represented the United States at the VIth International Bach Competition in Leipzig. Clare Hall at England’s Cambridge University has conferred Life Membership on him.