Organ Recital: Anthony Rispo

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
“Little” Fugue in G Minor, BWV 578

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847)
from Sonata No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 65 (1845)
   3. Allegretto
   4. Allegro maestoso e vivace

Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
from 24 Pièces en style libre, Op. 31
   14. Scherzetto

César Franck (1848-1890)
from Trois Chorals pour Orgue
   1. Choral in E Major
 

Anthony Rispo was born in Yonkers, New York. In middle school, in the early 2000s, he began organ lessons with the late Donald Dumler, who served as Principal Organist at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for several decades. Mr. Rispo attended the Pre-College Division at The Juilliard School for organ performance and later studied with Todd Wilson at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Mr. Rispo has also explored his passion for composition. His work entitled Suite No. 1 for Organ and Strings was premiered at Lincoln Center in New York City by the Salomé Chamber Orchestra. A more recent revision of this work premiered in Pasadena, California, in 2018.

As a performer, Mr. Rispo has had the opportunity to showcase his talent in various regions of the United States. He was a featured soloist for the Piccolo Spoletto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2013 and 2018. He has also performed twice at West Point Military Academy’s Cadet Chapel and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He was the featured soloist for Samuel Barber’s Toccata Festiva for Organ and Orchestra while a student at The Cleveland Institute of Music.

Anthony currently serves as the Music Director and Organist at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mount Kisco, New York. Additionally, he is pursuing a second career as a neuroscience and behavior undergraduate student at Columbia University. He is a research intern at the New York Psychiatric Institution at the Muhle Lab, which focuses on the gene CDH8, highly associated with autism. He plans on pursuing a Ph.D. in neuroscience, focusing on primary affective states shared by all mammals, giving etiological clarity to issues of mental and emotional health. Anthony is also passionate about shifting the psychotherapy paradigm to focus on long-term change and more transparent research designs.