Legendary concert organist John Weaver returns to perform at the Boothbay Harbor Congregational Church on Sunday, August 19 at 3 p.m. The concert is free although donations will be accepted at the door toward defraying expenses. Weaver served as Director of Music at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, was head of the organ department at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and Chair of the Organ Department at The Juilliard School. Now living in Vermont, he continues to lead master classes and concertize world wide.

Weaver returns to Maine this month to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Kotzschmar organ in Portland. The Kotzschmar, built by the Austin organ company of Hartford, Connecticut debuted in 1912. The organ at the Congregational Church is a smaller organ built by the same company and debuted in 1991.  Weaver began his formal music studies at the age of six in Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory. He began organ studies at age fourteen, the same year that he became the organist of a church in Baltimore and played his first recital. He went on to study and graduate from Curtis Institute as a student of Alexander McCurdy and earn a master's degree in sacred music from Union Theological Seminary. Weaver is noted for performing most of his concerts from memory. Marianne Weaver is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and holds a Master’s degree in flute from the Manhattan School of Music.  She studied with Jean-Pierre Rampal and Marcel Moyse. She has enjoyed a long career performing with orchestras and teaching in New York as well as joining her husband in his organ concerts.

Weaver's 2012 concert program includes Prelude and Fugue in E-Flat and Chorale-Prelude on "Wachet auf" by J. S. Bach, Introduction and Variations on "Laast uns erfreuen" by John Weaver, “Morning,” Op. 46 from Peer Gynt by Grieg, and Choral No. 1 in E Major by Cesar Franck. He will be joined in concert by his wife Marianne, an accomplished concert flutist and together they will perform Marcello’s Flute Sonata in F Major and Rhapsody for Flute and Organ by John Weaver.