Midtown Music Concert Series

Since 2018, South Main’s Midtown Music Concert Series has brought renowned performers from around Houston, the country, and the world to our Sanctuary. The goal of our series is to encourage musical guests to share their gifts of beauty and artistry with our church family and our Houston neighbors in our sacred space. This spring’s Concert Series includes the St. Olaf Choir, pianist Viktor Valkov, organist Katherine Jolliff, and South Main’s own Yuri McCoy with Bryan Anderson in an organ duo concert. 

Winner of the 2012 New Orleans International Piano Competition, Viktor Valkov has been hailed as a “lion of the keyboard” and “sensational” (Wiesbadener Kurier). A winner of Astral’s 2015 National Auditions, he recently gave a critically acclaimed recital in London’s Wigmore Hall, and appeared as soloist with the Louisiana Philharmonic, Baton Rouge Symphony, the Acadiana Symphony, and West Virginia Symphony.

In his native Bulgaria he has performed with most of the major orchestras and at most of the country’s important music festivals. At 21 he performed Dimitar Nenov’s Grande Piano Concerto with New Symphony Orchestra under Rossen Milanov, becoming the fifth pianist to perform the concerto, and the only one to do so in its entirety, while in 2007 he made his debut with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Valkov has made a number of recordings for the Bulgarian National Radio archive and has recorded for Bulgarian National Television and Macedonian Radio and Television.

As a soloist, some of Mr. Valkov’s recent projects included Beethoven’s Hammerklavier sonata and Busoni’s Fantasia Contrappuntistica. During the 2011-2012 season, he presented in concerts a program highlighting composers of the 1600’s, including Froberger, Couperin, Frescobaldi, and Buxtehude, and selections from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. His first solo CD was a Naxos release of the complete piano music of Dimitar Nenov.

Named one of The Diapason’s Top 20 Under 30 in 2023, Katherine Jolliff is pursuing a Master’s in organ performance at the Shepherd School of Music where she studies with Ken Cowan. Originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, she began piano studies at the age of five and started organ lessons with Marco Petricic during her freshman year of high school. She finished her high school studies at the Interlochen Arts Academy, where she majored in both piano and organ performance, graduated with honors, and earned the Fine Arts Award in Organ Performance. She pursued her undergraduate degree at the Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of David Higgs. She has had success in numerous competitions, including the Regional Competition for Young Organists, the Taylor Organ Competition and both first prize and audience prize in the National Undergraduate Organ Competition in Ottumwa Iowa. Outside of music, Katherine enjoys training at the local aerial studio, where she practices and has taught trapeze, aerial silks, and lyra.

Bryan Anderson and Yuri McCoy met at Rice University where they were both studying organ performance with professor Ken Cowan. Since then, the two began performing together as a duo in 2024, devising a concert program centered around Jean Guillou’s Symphonie Initiatique. Although the repertoire for organ duo is limited compared to music written for more “standard” instrumental duos, the two organists readily draw from the rich canon of piano duets and symphonic music. To that end, this season Bryan and Yuri will celebrate the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue with a new transcription for organ duo. Composed in Beethoven's last years, Grosse Fugue was originally composed for string quartet, and later, begrudgingly arranged for piano duet by the composer after pressure from the publisher. The concert will also feature the world premiere of Diabolical Variations on Paganini’s 24th Caprice by Yuri McCoy.