Isabelle Demers, an associate professor of organ at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, will be the featured performer at the Tabernacle Organ Virtuoso concert on Friday, May 15, at 7:30 p.m. in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City.
The 90-minute concert is free and open to the public; no tickets are required. It’s recommended for those 8 and older. While past Organ Virtuoso Performance Series concerts have been streamed online, this one will be available only in person.
About Isabelle Demers
Demers and her three siblings grew up playing an instrument, including the piano, violin, flute or guitar. At 6 years old, Demers began taking piano lessons.
“My parents were in sciences, but my mother really liked music, and so she made all her children learn music,” Demers said in an interview.
As a teenager Demers was studying both piano and organ. Ultimately, she decided to focus on the organ. Demers is a doctoral graduate of Juilliard School.
“Pianists don’t like it when I say this, but the nice thing about the organ is we have all of those tone colors we can choose from,” Demers said. She added, “I’m somebody who really likes to play with different timbres.”
And there is a challenge to get the best out of the instrument for the piece, she said.
Every organ and every space is unique, even if two organs are made by the same organ builder, as they are customized for the space. And many are “in pretty incredible spaces.”
Demers has previously been to Salt Lake City a few times and has been to concerts and “Music & the Spoken Word” in the Salt Lake Tabernacle.
When the American Choral Directors Association conference was in Salt Lake City several years ago, she was teaching at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and the choir was selected to perform in the Tabernacle during the conference. Demers said she begged her choral conducting colleague to include a piece from the organ.
Demers was able to play one piece during their performance.
“This instrument is one of the most famous, most iconic in America,” Demers said of the Tabernacle organ. “Then when you hear it in person, there’s really no comparison.”
For the Organ Virtuoso concert, the program includes excerpts from Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” “that’s very colorful and joyful music.” Also, she’s planning “Isle of the Dead” by Sergei Rachmaninoff that, she said, is a journey that’s “an incredibly powerful piece” and the Tabernacle organ “has really everything that you might need for a piece like that.”
Demers will also be in Provo, Utah, for an organ recital on July 23 at BYU’s new Music Building’s organ.
Previous Tabernacle Organ Virtuoso Performance Series concerts
The Tabernacle Organ Virtuoso Performance Series started in 2022 and was created to showcase the Tabernacle organ and world-renowned organists and has been presented quarterly. Each year, national performers and local organists are invited to perform, and one of the Tabernacle Choir staff organists also presents a concert.
The series began with concerts by James Higdon, an organist from the University of Kansas; Gabriele Terrone, the Cathedral of the Madeleine’s organist and assistant director of music; and Andrew Unsworth, who has been a Tabernacle Square organist since 2007.
In 2023, performers were Viktor Billa, Ukrainian organist and soloist who was an organist at Trinity United Methodist Church in Tallahassee, Florida, and is now the associate director of music and organist at the Reformed Church of Bronxville, New York; James O’Donnell, professor in the practice of organ at Yale School of Music and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in New Haven, Connecticut, and has had tenures at Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral, both in London; Daniel Kerr, the chair of the Music Department at Brigham Young University–Idaho; and Brian Mathias, who has been a Temple Square organist since 2018.
The first concert of 2024 featured Temple Square organist Linda Margetts in February. Diane Meredith Belcher, who has been performing for 50 years, was featured in May. Seth Bott, a native of Castle Dale, Utah, and director of music and organist at St. James Episcopal Church in Midvale, Utah, performed in September. Victoria Shorokhova, who recently received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance at University of Houston in Texas and is the organ scholar at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas, performed in November.
In 2025, James Welch, who has taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and at Santa Clara University and performed in concerts and recitals around the world, was the featured performer in February. Lynn Trapp, director of liturgy and music at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Maryland, performed in September. Richard Elliott, the principal organist for The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, was featured in November. (There wasn’t a concert in the spring due to the Tabernacle organ renovation.)
In January 2026, Daniel Hyde, the director of music at King’s College in Cambridge, England, was the featured performer. The others scheduled for concerts this year are Kenneth Udy, a Salt Lake City native and adjunct associate professor at the University of Utah on Aug. 28; and Joseph Peeples, an organist at Temple Square, on Nov. 13.
There is also a free, 30-minute daily organ recital in the Tabernacle at noon Mondays through Saturdays and at 2 p.m. on Sundays. They are occasionally moved to the Conference Center. See TheTabernacleChoir.org/daily-organ-recitals for information and the weekly schedule.
Playlists of organ music, including “Organ Solos” and “Tabernacle Choir Organ Performances” are available on the Tabernacle Choir’s YouTube channel.
About the Tabernacle organ
The Tabernacle organ currently has 11,623 pipes — and 10 of the largest pipes in the facade on the west end make sound. There are about 11,000 pipes behind the facade and about 600 on the east end.
It has five manuals, or keyboards, and 206 ranks of organ pipes and is among the world’s largest instruments. Its golden pipes are made from wood staves fashioned from Utah timber and still add to the sound of the famous instrument today.
