Gordon Turk

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Gordon Turk
Gordon Turk at the Ocean Grove (NJ) Auditorium
Born	New Jersey, USA
Occupation	Organist and composer

Gordon Turk is a prominent American concert organist. He has played throughout the United States, made two concert tours in Japan, and performed frequently in Europe, including the Ukraine and Russia, both as solo organist and with orchestra.

Turk is particularly well-known as resident organist of the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. Since he took this post in 1974, the famed Robert Hope-Jones organ has been enlarged to include over 9,000 pipes (165 ranks) and enriched with a remarkably diverse tonal palette. Besides playing for weekly Sunday services, Turk offers solo recitals (along with guest concert organists) in the Auditorium on Wednesdays and Saturdays in July and August, and serves as artistic director of the acclaimed "Summer Stars" chamber music series held there on Thursday evenings.

Turk has received the John Cerevalo Prize for "Excellence in the Performance of the Music of Johann Sebastian Bach" and has been a prize-winner in the national improvisation competition of the American Guild of Organists. In May 2006, he was one of the first organists to perform on the newly-installed Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ in Philadelphia's Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The previous year, he gave a recital on the Wanamaker organ in Philadelphia, the largest functioning instrument in the world.

He has also appeared in concert as a harpsichordist, pianist, and conductor (choral and orchestral). As a composer, he has written compositions for string orchestra, woodwinds, organ, piano, voice and chorus. In January 2000, his composition Elegy for string orchestra and oboe was performed live on television in Japan.

Turk is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied piano with and organ. He also studied with New York composer and organist McNeil Robinson at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, earning the Master's degree and the Doctor of Musical Arts, both with honors.

He is a former Professor of Organ at West Chester University of Pennsylvania (1992 – 1999).

Turk's compact disc recordings include the following: