Bryan Anderson and Yuri McCoy

Bryan Anderson enjoys a versatile career as a performer, church musician, teacher, and musical collaborator.  The Diapason, which named Bryan to its “20 under 30” Class of 2017, called his playing “brilliant;” Classical Voice of North Carolina described his playing as “simply first class.” Across various disciplines and specialties, Bryan’s reputation as an effective musician is well-established.

Bryan is the winner of the 2023 Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition, receiving the $40,000 Pierre S. DuPont Prize (the largest cash prize of any competitive organ event) and the Philadelphia AGO Chapter Prize for the best performance of a prescribed work by Florence Price.  Bryan also took the Louis Robilliard prize and a 3rd prize at the 2021 Canadian International Organ Competition, and the Firmin Swinnen Second Prize at the 2019 Longwood Gardens Organ Competition.

Bryan is employed as Director of Music at Saint Thomas’ Episcopal Church and School in Houston, TX, where he trains all ages of choirs from elementary ages through adults, oversees 8 sung services weekly, and organizes a concert season of outside artists and in-house ensembles. He serves as Co-Manager of the RSCM Gulf Coast choral residency program, and has also worked as the Preparatory Choir Director for the Houston Childrens’ Chorus.  He previously held positions at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Houston; Wells Cathedral in Somerset, England; and St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and Tenth Presbyterian Church, both in Philadelphia.  He also served as an assistant organist at the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ.

Hailed by Gramophone magazine as an organist possessing “rare virtuosity,” Dr. Yuri McCoy has made his mark on the organ world through bracingly original programming and a strong desire to shed a spotlight on less traversed areas of keyboard literature. Whether it is Niccolò Castiglioni’s rare and bizarre Symphony of War and Peace, or his own transcription of Edgard Varese’s massive orchestral work, Amériques, for organ, percussion, and assistant, Yuri enjoys the opportunity to share new and unusual sounds with audiences. He also supports the music of living composers and in 2006 premiered “Voices of the Invisible Blue Butterflies” by Vache Sharafyan at the SoundSCAPE music festival in Cortona, Italy. 

Yuri’s debut CD recording, Symphonic Roar: An Odyssey of Sound from the Paris Conservatoire was published in 2022 on the Acis label. It was recorded in Houston on the newly installed Nichols and Simpson organ of South Main Baptist Church and the Fisk organ at Rice University. Several of Yuri’s recordings have been featured on the nationally distributed radio show PIPEDREAMS from American Public Media.

A native of Huntington, WV, Yuri holds the Doctoral of Musical Arts, and the Master of Musical Arts from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University where he studied with organist Ken Cowan.  He also earned a Master of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in piano performance from Marshall University.