Organist Karen Beaumont Launches Series at St. Hedwig

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Photo courtesy of Karen Beaumont

Karen Beaumont

Karen Beaumont playing the organ

Karen Beaumont keeps a relatively low profile in Milwaukee, but her music is being heard around the world. Beaumont’s 2020 album, Noels, was released by Pro Organo, a classical music label. Since my last article about her, in 2023, “my compositions have been performed, to my knowledge, in 23 countries,” Beaumont says. Organ is her primary instrument, but she has also composed for choir, piano and violin.

This month, she will begin a series of Sunday afternoon organ recitals at St. Hedwig Church. She is familiar with the East Side sanctuary, having performed there (and at a variety of other Milwaukee churches) as organist on Sunday mornings. Her October 19 performance features organ music by living composers: the American Carson Cooman, the Italian Calotta Ferrari and herself. On December 7 she will perform organ music by early Baroque composer Johann Buttstett. She returns to St. Hedwig on February 15 for a concern of “early music written on the Iberian Peninsula and modern compositions inspired by early Iberian music,” she says. The series concludes on April 19 with early Dutch Baroque music paired with Johann Sebastian Bach.

In programming her recitals, she considers the suitability of the music to the organ at hand and the acoustics of the room, as well as providing “contrasts—not all fast, not all loud— creating an emotional arc.

“The pipe organ at St. Hedwig's was built in 2010 by an American builder, Holtkamp,” she continues. “It is a two manual (two keyboard) organ. Without drowning you in in organ-speak, it is a modest instrument which is nonetheless well-designed to a great deal of flexibility and paired beautifully with the room's acoustics which are warm (reverberant but not overwhelmingly so) and bright.”

The recitals begin at 1:30 p.m. at St. Hedwig Church, 1702 N. Humboldt Ave. Admission is free.