Organist

Joel Hastings was born in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.  With his father’s purchase of a Hammond B3 organ, he began music lessons with a local church organist in North Bay, Ontario, at the age of seven. Eight years later he commenced piano lessons with David Palmer at the University of Windsor, himself a student of the French pianist, Yvonne Loriod. From the Royal Conservatory of Music, Mr. Hastings earned his ARCT diploma in both piano and organ, receiving the gold medal for the highest score in the county.

His studies continued at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, USA, where he graduated with degrees in organ and piano. Among his teachers were Nina Lelchuk and Sergei Babayan, both outstanding pianists of the Russian school; Dickran Atamian, a piano phenomenon who had studied with Claudio Arrau and Jorge Bolet; and internationally renowned organist, Robert Glasgow.

Mr. Hastings has received grants from the Canadian Council for the Performing Arts and was the winner of the International Bach Competition at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Reviewers have described his playing as passionate, mesmerizing, hypnotizing, and transcendental. In a Newsweek review, he “pulled the audience to their feet after a wild performance of Franz Liszt’s Totentanz.” After delivering a stunning performance at the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, one reporter designated Mr. Hastings as the “audience favorite” while another declared, “the kinetic fingers of this young Canadian reminded me strongly of his late countryman, Glenn Gould.”

You can hear Joel’s musical gifts each week in the service at First Baptist Church, Sundays at 10.00 a.m.

His CD “Sessions” is a collection of piano music from Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Mendelssohn, Scriabin, and Liszt. Now available at Borders on Liberty and King’s Keyboards, or you can buy your copy directly from the artist. You are invited to visit www.joelhastings.com for more information.

Joel can be e-mailed at: joel@joelhastings.com

Joel Hastings, Sessions (Prestant, 2002)

I don’t often wax rhapsodic over new releases, but this offering by superb native Canadian and local classical pianist Joel Hastings is one worth burbling over. Generally our musicians put together well-done, enjoyable recordings. Hastings, however, presents the work of a true artist on this new album, Sessions.

Upon my first listening of the Rachmaninoff compositions, which comprise the first five tracks, I was set back on my heels by the impeccable virtuosity and musical inspiration underlying Hastings’s interpretation. His astonishing evenness of tone brings out the shimmer of Lilacs and the contrasting virility of the Etude-Tableau, Op. 39 No. 1.

The disc has 10 tracks of Prokofiev works (you can never have too much Prokofiev), which illustrates not just his mastery over the most difficult piano technique, but also his stature as an artist. His control and depth of expression go from the introspective beauty of Legend to the aggressive, primitive stomping of the Allemande. This latter piece brought to mind an illustration in one of my childhood books of the hut of Baba-Yar dancing about on huge chicken legs.

Hastings magnificently polishes off Mendelssohn’s Variations Sérieuses in D Minor, Op. 54; Scriabin’s Sonata No. 9, Op. 68; and Liszt’s fiendishly difficult Totentanz.