Biography
Canadian organist John Paul Farahat is Director of Music and Principal Organist of Saint Basil’s Church, the collegiate church of the University of Saint Michael’s College in the University of Toronto, where he directs the Schola Cantorum and oversees the Casavant Frères organ. He serves on the organ faculty of Saint Michael’s Choir School and on the team of organists for Saint Michael’s Cathedral Basilica.
As a recitalist, Farahat has appeared throughout Europe and North America, including the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, La Madeleine, Saint-Eustache, Saint-Sulpice, the Berliner Dom, Westminster Abbey, Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, Trinity College Cambridge, Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. Festival performances have included the International Organ Festival Toulouse Les Orgues, Organ Festival Canada, and the ORGANIX Festival. An advocate for contemporary music, he gave the Canadian premiere of Ana Sokolović’s organ suite T-Rex.
Farahat’s work as an improviser and scholar has included the rediscovery of the Canadian organist-improviser Victor Togni (1935–1965), leading to the reconstruction and performance of archival improvisations and a deeper understanding of Togni’s artistic connections with figures including Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, Jean Langlais, Olivier Messiaen, and Marcel Dupré.
John Paul Farahat holds the Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance degree from the University of Toronto. He studied organ, improvisation, and harpsichord with Kevin Komisaruk, and received additional instruction from Olivier Latry, Thierry Escaich, Peter Williams, Martin Haselböck, Noam Sivan, and Thomas Murray.
