2025 Summer Organ Recital Series: Benjamin LaPrairie

Join the Basilica for the seventh performance of the 2025 Summer Organ Recital Series on August 17 at 6:00 p.m. ET in the Great Upper Church. Benjamin LaPrairie of Washington, D.C. will perform.

Program:

Concerto in C Major after Vivaldi, BWV 594 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

I. Allegro
II. Recitativo – Adagio
III. Allegro

Sonata Breve – Gerald Near (b. 1942)

II. Air with variation
III. March

Homage to Edward Elgar and William Walton – Gerald Near (b. 1942)

Interval

Choral in A Minor – César Franck (1822-1890)

15 Versets pour les Vêpres du Commun des Fêtes de la Sainte Vierge – Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)
– Based on improvisations by Marcel Dupré on August 15, 1919, during Vespers in Notre-Dame de Paris

Antiphon 2: His Left Hand Is Under My Head, and His Right Hand Doth Embrace Me
Antiphon 3: I am Black but Comely, O Ye Daughters of Jerusalem
Antiphon 5: How Fair and Pleasant Art Thou

Toccata, Fugue et Hymne sur Ave Maris Stella, Op. 28 – Flor Peeters (1903-1986)

Benjamin LaPrairie

Benjamin LaPrairie serves as Associate Director of Music at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Since 2011, he has assisted in the leadership of the music department and has regularly accompanied daily, Sunday, and other special Masses throughout the year. Notable liturgies include the Canonization Mass of Saint Junípero Serra, celebrated by Pope Francis, and the Funeral Mass of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In May of 2019, Benjamin performed with the Choir of the Basilica in concerts and liturgies in Rome for the commemoration of 35 years of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Holy See. Previous posts include Principal Organist at St. Dominic Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., and Director of Music at St. Patrick Catholic Church in St. Charles, Illinois.

Benjamin has also composed works which have been performed by the Choir, Brass, and Orchestra of the Basilica, and have been recorded and broadcast worldwide on EWTN, Salt & Light Media, and CatholicTV. His setting of Christus Vincit was premiered upon the entrance of Pope Francis into the Great Upper Church of the National Shrine in September of 2015. Recent works include a new setting of Ye Sons and Daughters for the Choir and Orchestra of the Basilica, and a setting of Joy to the World for the choirs and orchestra of The Catholic University of America. As an organist, Benjamin has performed throughout the United States and abroad, and has been featured as a soloist with the Pine Mountain Music Festival, at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, NJ, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Eccles Organ Festival at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, UT, and the Sacra Liturgia Conference at St. Patrick Seminary in San Francisco, CA.

A native of Michigan, Benjamin is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater, and Dance, where he studied organ with Robert Glasgow. He received a Master of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he studied organ with John Walker, and was the recipient of the Bruce R. Eicher Prize in Organ. In the fall of 2019, Benjamin was appointed Lecturer in Organ at The Catholic University of America Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art, and in 2022, he was invited to join the board of the Catholic Sacred Music Project, under the patronage of Robert Cardinal Sarah.