Mr. Justin Thomas Blackwell
associate music director and organist
Organist and conductor Justin Thomas Blackwell received his Bachelor’s degree in organ performance from Furman University (Greenville, SC) in 2005, and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in choral conducting at Boston University. He currently serves as the Associate Director of Music at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel, the Associate Music Director of the Back Bay Chorale, and accompanist and assistant conductor of both the Boston University Chamber Chorus and the Boston University Symphonic Chorus. He began his musical studies at the age of five in his home city of Charleston, South Carolina.
While at Furman University (B.M., 2005), Mr. Blackwell served at various times as accompanist and associate conductor of every major university choral ensemble. In addition to accompanying these choirs in rehearsal, he also regularly collaborated with the Furman Symphony Orchestra as a keyboardist in the performances of choral/orchestral works. As a recitalist, Mr. Blackwell was honored to be the first student to perform on the new Hartness Organ (C. B. Fisk, Op. 121, 2004), Furman’s stunning 3-maunal, 54-rank tracker action organ, an instrument that has received national praise since its installation. Recordings he made as organist with the Furman choral ensembles have been broadcast over both South Carolina Public Radio and the National Public Radio program “Pipedreams.”
Mr. Blackwell was appointed to the position of Associate Director of Music at Marsh Chapel in the summer of 2007. Prior to that, he served as Marsh Chapel’s Assistant Organist and Choirmaster. As principal organist for the regionally broadcast services, he can be heard weekly in the Boston area on the local NPR station, as well on the web through Marsh Chapel’s weekly podcast. Mr. Blackwell also serves as the principal organist for the Marsh Chapel Collegium, Marsh Chapel’s resident orchestra. As a member of the Collegium, he has been privileged to add some of the great Baroque masterworks to his repertoire, including Bach’s Magnificat, BWV 243, St. John Passion, BWV 245, and Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, Handel’s Saul and Solomon, Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri, and about a dozen Bach cantatas performed as part of Marsh Chapel’s annual Bach Cantata series. In his work with the Back Bay Chorale, he has performed as continuo organist in concerts of Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610 and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244 as well as concert organist for Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. In the autumn of 2006, he performed the solo organ version of Duruflé’s Requiem, Op. 9 with the Boston University Choruses, and in the autumn of 2007, Mr. Blackwell made his debut in Boston’s Symphony Hall as organist for Charles Ives’ setting of Psalm 90 with the same ensemble.
For the past three years, Mr. Blackwell has made appearances with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra as organist for their annual performance of Handel’s Messiah. In the coming season, he will appear twice more with the Charlotte Symphony, once as continuo organist in a performance of Handel’s Saul in February, and again as a pianist in a performance of Orff’s Carmina Burana in May. Mr. Blackwell has also made several appearances with the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC: once as musical director for the musical Forever Plaid (2002), once in a solo organ recital (2004), and most recently as organist in the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra Chamber Singer’s performance of Schütz’s Musicalische Exequien. Mr. Blackwell spends his summers at the Tanglewood complex in Lenox, MA, where he works with the Boston University Tanglewood Institute as Assistant Conductor of the choruses and teacher of music theory. After his anticipated graduation from Boston University in the spring of 2008, Mr. Blackwell plans to stay in the Boston area and continue his studies in organ.
