The spell-binding performances of Adam J. Brakel have led to his being compared to Liszt, Gould, Bernstein, and Paganini. National Public Radio in Florida hailed him “An absolute organ prodigy, with the technique and virtuosity that most concert pianists could only dream of. He is the Franz Liszt of the organ.”

He enjoys a highly successful concert career, playing from coast to coast in the United States and in concert tours in England, Germany, Hong Kong, and Finland. Brakel’s repertoire of organ literature is extensive and includes the complete organ works of Bach, Bruhns, Buxtehude, Couperin, Liszt, Franck, Mendelssohn, Duruflé, and Franck. In addition to works of all periods, he has championed the fiendishly difficult Six Etudes of Jeanne Demessieux, being one of very few concert organists in the world to perform and record the complete set. He has also made a concentrated study of jazz music for the pipe organ and has premiered arrangements of renowned jazz pianist Dick Hyman's Shenandoah and Millennial Countdown.

Adam J. Brakel graduated from Duquesne University in 2006 as an organ student of John Walker and David Craighead. While at Duquesne he served as Associate Organist at St.Paul’s Catholic Cathedral in Pittsburgh. He then enrolled at The Juilliard School in New York City and was appointed Assistant Organist at the Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola on New York’s Park Avenue. Further studies took him to Toulouse, France, and then to the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore where he completed his master’s degree and Graduate Performance Diploma in 2011. At Peabody, he studied with Donald Sutherland and visiting guest professor Dame Gillian Weir. Brakel took top prizes in the Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition, the Reuter/Augustana Arts Undergraduate Organ Competition, and the Gruenstein Memorial Organ Competition, among others.

Mr. Brakel has made three CD recordings: Romantic and Virtuosic and In Times of Crisis on the Raven label; and Grand Music for a Grand Organ, released on the Towerhill label in later summer 2018.In November 2017, Mr. Brakel was appointed Director of Music for the Diocese of Orlando, Florida and St. James Cathedral. This appointment follows positions at Christ the King Catholic Church in Tampa, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish in the Diocese of St. Petersburg, and at St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Cathedral in Palm Beach Gardens--a position to which he was appointed at age 25, making him at the time one of the youngest directors appointed to a cathedral in the United States.

For additional information, visit http://www.adambrakel.com.

Adam J. Brakel is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC.