Clara Gerdes Bartz at the Great Organ

A North Carolina native, Clara has studied with Martin Jean at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and with Alan Morrison at the Curtis Institute of Music.  She received first prizes in the Albert Schweitzer, AGO-Quimby Mid-Atlantic Regional and UNCSA School of the Arts organ competitions; was the recipient of the 2020 Baker Prize in Organ Performance and the 2021 Julia Sherman Award for Excellence in Organ Playing from Yale; and received the first annual AGO Pogorzelski-Yankee scholarship.  She has performed around the United States, including at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York and Washington National Cathedral, the American Guild of Organists 2018 National Convention in Kansas City, and at Spoleto, Oregon Bach Festival, Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts and most recently the Uncommon Music Festival in Sitka, Alaska.

She now serves as Director of Music at Most Holy Redeemer and Nativity Parish in Manhattan, where her responsibilities include building up the parish’s music program and overseeing the restoration of its 1891 Roosevelt organ.