Wolfgang Rübsam is a special phenomenon of keyboard recording - indeed of recording per se - and lies at the heart of Naxos' contribution and commitment to the dissemination of organ music.
Wolfgang Rübsam was born in Germany and received his musical training in Europe from Erich Ackermann, Helmut Walcha and Marie-Claire Alain, and in the United States from Robert T. Anderson.
Rübsam has been Professor of Church Music and Organ at Northwestern University since 1974, shortly after winning the 1973 Grand Prix de Chartres for Interpretation. He has also been University Organist at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel of the University of Chicago. In great demand as a concert hall performer and as a festival artist, Rübsam appears regularly at the Los Angeles Bach Festival, the Wiener Festwochen and the Royal Festival Hall, to mention only a few of his many ports of call.
Professor Rübsam is probably best known internationally through over a hundred highly acclaimed recordings of the organ repertoire - from the Baroque and Romantic periods - for a variety of labels. Called upon frequently to give recitals and masterclasses in the US and Europe, he has also served on the juries of the most prestigious competitions, where his breadth of experience and sureness of technique have won respect and admiration in a variety of contexts. Rübsam is currently Professor at the Hochschule des Saarlandes fuer Musik und Theater in Saarbruecken, Germany.
For Naxos Professor Rübsam has performed on organ and piano in an irrepressible affirmation of faith in J.S. Bach which has extended to dozens of discs, most of which have made an impressive and sometimes an unexpected mark upon the critics. Yet Rübsam has also found time to record music by the most famous Liechtenstinian composer, Joseph Gabriel Rheinberger, and the German composer of Protestant church music (remembered for anything but), Johann Pachelbel, thus extending the pleasure of those who enjoy refined playing on the king of instruments.
