Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Warsaw native and nationally recognized concert organist Jesse Eschbach III will visit his hometown June 26 to play at the 9:30 a.m. worship service at the First United Methodist Church of Warsaw.
His first public appearance at the organ was at First UMC when he was only 13 years old.
Eschbach is the son of Judge Jesse and Mary Eschbach, now living in Florida. Judge Eschbach was a native of Warsaw and practiced law here as a senior partner in Graham, Rasor, Eschbach and Harris and was politically active locally and statewide. He also served as executive vice president of Endicott Church Furniture Inc. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy appointed him judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, and in 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed him judge of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.
The younger Eschbach shared many hours of organ music with his Warsaw neighbors under the guidance of organist Jeannette Perry. He went on to graduate from Indiana University and the University of Michigan, where he was a student of Robert Glasgow. He completed his formal education during a five-year residency in Paris as a student of Marie-Claire Alain, in her conservatory class at Rueil-Malmaison. He specialized in early French music and was awarded a Prix d'Excellence and a Prix de Virtuosit. As one of the last students of the legendary Marie-Madelein Durufl-Chevalier, he studied the complete organ works of her husband, Maurice Durafl, as well as much of the French symphonic repertoire.
Since 1986, Eschbach has served on the faculty at the University of North Texas as the full-time professor of organ, instructing performance majors at all levels, and is chairman of the division of keyboard studies. An active performer until 1998, Eschbach has several CDs to his credit, as well as an 800-page book detailing the original stoplists of the majority of organs constructed by Aristide Cavaill-Coll, based extensively on the Laprest collection.
Diagnosed in 1994 with focal dystonia in the right hand, he was forced to suspend his public performances in 1998. In 2003, the Cleveland Clinic announced an experimental therapy for dystonia and recommended that Eschbach be evaluated. Following six weeks in a cast and many months of retraining hand muscles and technique under the supervision of Dr. Kee Fedak, much of his facility returned, and he gradually is returning to performing.
Eschbach will begin playing at 9:15 a.m., with the "Moderato and Andante Sostenuto" from Symphonie Gothique, Op. 70, by Charles-Marie Widor. Later in the worship service, he'll play the "Allegro" from Trio Sonata I in E-flat Major, BWV 525, by J.S. Bach. To conclude the service, he will play the "Finale" from Symphonie Gothique, by Widor.
The public is invited to attend. The church is at 179 S. Indiana St., Warsaw. For more information, call 574-267-6933.
