Organist pulls out all the stops to bring Bach to UChicago

Over the 2023-’24 academic year, UChicago organ scholar Jacob Reed performed the complete organ works of Bach on Monday afternoons at Bond Chapel. Photo by Jason Smith.

This story by Tori Lee was originally published by UChicago News on July 19, 2024. Click here to read the full story.

Editor’s note: This story is part of ‘Meet a UChicagoan,’ a regular series focusing on the people who make UChicago a distinct intellectual community.

Some people cook elaborate meals in their spare time; others make pottery or grow tomatoes. University of Chicago graduate student Jacob Reed plays the complete organ works of composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

For the past year, if you walked by the University of Chicago’s historic Bond Chapel on Monday afternoons, you likely heard the piping of the Reneker Organ, an instrument Reed likens to a wild, untamable beast.

“The Bond Chapel organ, I don’t think can be domesticated,” said Reed, an organ scholar at UChicago pursuing a Ph.D. in music theory and history. “It's so live and shows so much of what you’re doing. It’s still kind of a high-wire act every time I’m playing it.”

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