By DANIEL SULLIVAN

Paul Jacobs at the organ in Sydney Town Hall, Australia.

Every year Juilliard honors one of its faculty members with the William Schuman Scholars Chair, an award that recognizes significant contributions to both the intellectual and artistic life of the Juilliard community. This year, the award goes to Paul Jacobs, the chair of the organ department—who, at age 29, is the youngest Juilliard faculty member to receive this honor. Within the past few years, Mr. Jacobs has single-handedly redefined what it means to be a successful professional organist in the 21st century. In addition to his work at Juilliard, he plays about 40 concerts a year, winning accolades from both critics and the general public, and increasing awareness of the organ and its repertoire. He has given recitals on five continents, and as word of his engaging performances begins to spread, Mr. Jacobs is enjoying bookings years in advance. As an artist-teacher at Juilliard, he is becoming the leader of a new generation of organists.

The Juilliard community and interested neighbors in the New York City area will have the opportunity to see and hear for themselves what has attracted audiences to Paul Jacobs's artistic, intellectual, and spiritual grappling with classical music. On Wednesday, March 21, at 11:30 a.m. in Paul Hall, Mr. Jacobs will give a presentation titled "Blowing Hot Air for 2,600 Years." He will perform in addition to speaking about the organ's lively role throughout the history of music.

"Up until the Industrial Revolution the organ was perhaps the most complicated invention of humanity, and yet today it is arguably the most misunderstood instrument within mainstream classical music," said Jacobs in a recent interview. "Many musicians are unaware that Mozart, Mendelssohn, Franck, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, and Saint-Saëns—to name only a few—understood the organ, had a significant regard for it, and added to its already vast and varied repertoire. This instrument claims a repertoire that deserves to be known and recognized. How is it that a pianist can spend years studying Bach's keyboard works (for example, the 48 preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier) and have no acquaintance with his immense body of organ works?"

Jacobs suggests that an answer may be due in part to the cultural stereotypes that have accrued to the instrument: "Some believe that the organ is rarely encountered beyond the confines of horror movies, funeral parlors, and weddings." He adds that, "for quite some time, many organists valued an historically accurate performance above a convincing one. Certainly one can be simultaneously both historically aware and musically exhilarating; however, an intolerance to interpretations outside of the window of authenticity—which might work on paper and in the lecture hall—ultimately alienated audiences who were seeking the visceral thrill that fine organ playing can bring."

Mr. Jacobs is a zealous champion of placing the organ in a more artistic light, optimistically noting that "pipe organs have with striking frequency been placed in concert halls throughout the United States and are enjoying somewhat of a revival and a life outside of churches and synagogues." In his second project as Schuman Scholar, he will gather together a group of distinguished panelists to discuss common misconceptions about the organ, its repertoire, and its potential in today's diverse cultural climate. This event will take place on Tuesday, April 10, at 1 p.m. in Paul Hall, and feature composer and faculty member Samuel Adler; Wall Street Journal music critic Barbara Jepson; critic, composer, and faculty member Greg Sandow; and Craig Whitney, author of the book All the Stops and assistant managing editor at The New York Times.

Jacobs's promotion of the organ is part of his larger mission to enrich the world with the nourishing content of classical music. As he says, "Serious musicians must fervently persist in spreading a music which our culture frequently ignores but so desperately needs. I wonder how much musical talent goes unrecognized, unnurtured, and undeveloped in inner-city schools." Mr. Jacobs knows firsthand how powerful classical music is and what it takes to foster talent. As an undergraduate at Curtis he was so spellbound by the music of J. S. Bach that he relentlessly forewent sleep over a period of years to memorize Bach's entire output for the organ, performing it in a marathon concert of some 18 hours. Later, at Yale, he cultivated a similar attachment to the music of Olivier Messiaen, and in a feat of extracurricular industry that surged far beyond the program's expectations, he memorized Messiaen's oeuvre and performed it in eight U.S. cities in recitals of a "mere" nine hours.

Mr. Jacobs' activity as the Schuman Scholars Chair will culminate next fall in a performance of a work especially close to his heart, Messiaen's final work for the organ: Livre du Saint Sacrement (1984). The venue for this event, which will take place on October 9 at 8 p.m., is the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, at 145 West 46th Street, near Times Square. The Schuman Scholars Chair was created through the generosity of board member Kenneth S. Davidson and his wife, Marya Martin.

Juilliard's Literature and Materials of Music Department will also be featuring Jacobs as a guest speaker in its new series, Bach and the Baroque, on Wednesday, February 28, at 11 a.m. in Paul Hall.

Daniel Sullivan is a doctoral student in organ.