Trinity to host organ recital to benefit Danville Children’s Choir

Trinity Episcopal Church is hosting an organ recital with David Briggs at 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 9 at the church. The recital will be free, but donations will be accepted for the benefit of The Danville Children’s Choir. A reception to meet Briggs will be held following the recital.

Briggs is the artist in residence at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City. Recently hailed by the New York Times as “one of our finest organists,” Briggs has built a world-wide reputation for making organ music exciting, inspiring, and accessible to a broad and diverse range of listeners, helping ensure that present and future generations will appreciate, be moved and even changed by this supreme instrument.

Briggs plays about 65 concerts each year, all over the globe. Recent engagements include the Royal Albert Hall, London; Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris; National Concert Hall, Madrid; Duke University Chapel; and Overture Hall, in Madison, Wisconsin.

In addition to performing extensive concert repertoire spanning five centuries, Briggs offers dazzling transcriptions of symphonic works, thereby giving listeners the opportunity to experience the organ in a new way. He has transcribed orchestral compositions by Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Bruckner, Ravel and Bach as well as Mahler’s Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth symphonies.

Renowned as an expert improviser in a wide diversity of styles, Briggs also frequently improvises to classic silent movies of the 1920s. Earlier this year he played his 57th King of Kings, co-presented by the Ghiberti Center for Culture at Grace Cathedral and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in celebration of the film’s 90th anniversary. He improvises to a number of other films including Phantom of the Opera, Joan of Arc, Nosferatu, Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde, The General, and several Charlie Chaplin shorts.

Pleasant Valley Baptist homecoming

Pleasant Valley Baptist Church will observe its 153rd Homecoming and Rally on Sunday, Sept. 2. The 3 p.m. guest speaker will be Pastor Robert Blythe from First Baptist Church in Richmond. Dinner will be served; everyone is invited.

Lancaster church homecoming

First Baptist Church Davistown, Lancaster, will hold homecoming services on Sunday, Sept. 2. Guest preacher for the 11:30 a.m. service will be Rev. Donald Crutcher and guest preacher for the 3:30 p.m. service will be Rev. Reginald Davis, Macedonia Baptist Church, Keene.