2010 First Presbyterian Church National Organ Playing Competition names winners

Colin D. Lynch was named the winner of the 2010 First Presbyterian Church National Organ Playing Competition in the finals held March 20 at First Presbyterian Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana, on the Jack R. Ruhl Memorial Organ built by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company.


The four finalists were chosen from 13 preliminary recorded entries. Lynch was awarded a cash prize of $2,000 and will be presented in recital at First Presbyterian Church on May 2.



Colin Lynch serves as director of chapel music and school organist at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire.


He is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma from Oberlin Conservatory, studying with James David Christie.

Lynch completed a master’s degree in organ performance with Thomas Murray at Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music and earned a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, where he studied with Douglas Cleveland. Improvisation study has been with Richard Webster, William Porter, and Jeffrey Brillhart.



Second-place winner Song Yi Park, CAGO, received a cash prize of $1,000. Park is studying for the Graduate Performance Diploma at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where she is an organ student of John Walker.
She earned a master’s degree at Boston University, where she was a student of Peter Sykes.
She also holds an undergraduate degree in choral conducting and sacred music from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
Park serves as an organist at Loch Raven United Methodist Church in Baltimore, Maryland.



Other finalists included Brenda Portman, resident organist at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio; and Chelsea Vaught, who is pursuing a DMA at the University of Kansas, where she studies with Michael Bauer.



To celebrate this 50th anniversary of the founding of the competition, the judges chosen for the finals were all previous winners of the competition:

Huw Lewis (winner in 1974), college organist at Hope College, Holland, Michigan, and director of music at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Detroit;
Mark Brampton Smith (winner in 1989), organist at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, Middleton, Wisconsin;
and James Diaz (winner in 1994), organist and choirmaster at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, Dallas