David Lim

Events

  • The Organ in the United States since 1975
    808 Howell St
    July 7, 2022 @ 9:00 am
    Nearly fifty years have passed since Orpha Ochse’s landmark book The History of the Organ in the United States (1975), wherein she examines four centuries of organ building practices and ethos in the Americas. I examine the intervening years of American organ culture, devoting particular attention to the twenty-first century. Notably, new and existing American organs respond to domestic demands and a burgeoning international export market. Pluralistic and historic impetuses chiefly drive these installations. Healthy appreciation and desire for historic instruments manifests in the preservation, relocation, and dispersion of existing classical and theatre organs. Technological advancements in audio sampling and computer processing continue to foster sizable markets for electronic/digital/virtual instruments. Selected case studies of instruments supply examples of larger movements. This summation and analysis encompasses a broad scope of musical instruments, providing a representative review the organ’s various forms in the United States.

David Lim
About

David Lim is a doctoral student in organ performance at the University of Oklahoma, studying under Adam Pajan and Damin Spritzer. He holds degrees from the University of Iowa (M.A., organ performance) and Gustavus Adolphus College (B.A. music and biology). Other teachers include Gregory Hand, Chad Winterfeldt, Chad Fothergill, and Jon Naatjes. 

At Oklahoma, he teaches music theory courses as a graduate assistant. He previously taught private lessons and keyboard harmony as the organ department assistant. Lim worked with film musicologist Nathan Platte on a critical edition of George Gershwin’s music for Damsel in Distress (1937). 

Lim is the recipient of the 2014 Immanuel Lutheran Church Organ Scholar Award (Evanston, IL). In 2017, he was awarded an E. Power Biggs Fellowship from the Organ Historical Society and was inducted to the University of Iowa’s chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda, the national music honor society. 

He served in leadership roles in the American Guild of Organists with local chapters, AGO Young Organists (AGOYO), regional convention committees, and Pipe Organ Encounter faculty. 

Lim is Director of Music at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Ardmore, OK and has formerly served Roman Catholic and Lutheran parishes.