Music Staff

Dr. Nicholas Halbert is a versatile musician committed to artistry and excellence as an organist, conductor, vocalist, collaborator, and scholar.  He has served as the Director of Music at the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania since the Fall of 2024. Where he leads the Cathedral Choir, plays for services, and regularly performs in recital. Additionally, he supervises the diverse musical life of the various liturgies at the Cathedral.

 

As an organist, Nicholas is dedicated to bringing passion and energy to the organ repertoire and creating dynamic and compelling interpretations. Recent performances have included solo recitals at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (Phoenix, AZ), St. James-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church (La Jolla, CA), Spreckels Organ Pavilion (San Diego, CA),  St. Mark's United Methodist (San Diego, CA), the Organ Hall at Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ), and a series of solo recitals performed at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in the Spring of 2023. He has been heard at Christ the King Roman Catholic (Dallas, TX), the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration (Dallas, TX), the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation (Dallas, TX), the Southern Methodist University Canterbury House (Dallas, TX), Christ Church Episcopal (Rochester, NY), and Downtown United Presbyterian Church (Rochester, NY). Nicholas was a recitalist at the 2015 Western Regional AGO convention and a presenter at the 2019 Organ Historical Society conference. He has appeared twice on NPR's Pipedreams. Several recorded performances are available on Nicholas Halbert’s Youtube page.

 

In demand as a collaborative keyboardist, Nicholas recently appeared with the Mainly Mozart Festival All-Star Orchestra as harmoniumist for a chamber reduction of Mahler's Fourth Symphony and performed again with them in 2024 as the organist for Faure's Requiem. Nicholas was joined by soprano Michelle Pérez for a collaborative recital of voice and piano at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Erie, Pennsylvania, in July of 2024. During his time at ASU, he performed with the University Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, and Concert Choir in concerts featuring works of Maslanka, Vierne, and Molly Joyce.

 

Equally at home in the concert hall and the library, Nicholas is a published scholar. His thesis, Symphonies at the Johanneskirche: The Organ Sonatas of Hans Fährmann, is available on Proquest; a synopsis of that research was published in the November, 2024 issue of The Diapason.

 

As a supporter of the musical arts, Nicholas has been instrumental in establishing new concert programming. In Dallas, he developed and administered the Grand-Orgue series on the Juget-Sinclaire at Christ the King Roman Catholic Church, which featured professional musicians from the Dallas-Fort Worth region along with organ students from leading conservatories across the state of Texas. In San Diego, he created the Op. 68 Organ Series, which celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Quimby organ and the St. Paul’s Chamber Music series, which featured leading San Diegan musicians and graduate students from music schools across the country.

 

Nicholas was the recording engineer and producer for organist Christopher Anderson’s album Max Reger: 52 Easy Preludes on the Most Common Protestant Chorales, Op. 67, released on the Centaur label. He recorded and produced two full-length concert films for the Southern Methodist University organ department, including a lecture-recital on Bach’s Orgelbuchlein. His recordings of the Arizona State University organ studio performing music of Margaret Sandresky were featured on NPR’s Pipedreams.

 

Nicholas has been ensconced in sacred music since the age of nine years old when he joined the Boy Choir at St. Paul's Cathedral, San Diego, where he eventually served as one of the Head Choristers. At sixteen, he was appointed the Organ Scholar of the Cathedral, a position which saw him serve as the principal service player and accompanist to all of the Cathedral's choirs. Subsequently, Nicholas earned a Bachelors in Organ performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. He studied organ with Nathan Laube, as well as harpsichord and fortepiano with Edoardo Bellotti. He then earned a Masters Degree and Performers Diploma in Organ at Southern Methodist University in the studio of Stefan Engels, holding the teaching assistantship during his final two years there. While at SMU, he also studied liturgical organ playing and choral accompanying with Scott Dettra. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Arizona State University, where he was the Organ Teaching Assistant during his first year. Nicholas has held organist positions at the Church of the Transfiguration, Dallas; Christ the King Roman Catholic Church, Dallas; St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, San Diego; and director positions at Christ Church of the Ascension, Phoenix, and St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, Buffalo, New York.