William K. Trafka
Director of Music and Organist
William Trafka has been the Director of Music and Organist of St. Bartholomew's Church since 1995. Prior to that, he served as St. Bartholomew's Associate Organist for ten years. His responsibilities include conducting St. Bartholomew's Choir, St. Bart's Singers, the Schola Cantorum and St. Bartholomew's Handbell Choir. Additionally, he oversees the programming of St. Bartholomew's Great Music Series, a series of concerts of choral, organ and chamber music which take place in both the church and the chapel. He also programs and conducts St. Bartholomew's annual Summer Festival of Sacred Music, a 13-week series of great sacred choral music sung as part of the 11 AM service each Sunday during the summer.
As an organist, he has held church positions since he was 11 years old. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he was awarded the Performer's Certificate in organ performance. His teachers have included David Craighead for organ, Roger Wilhelm for choral conducting and J. Melvin Butler for church music. He has performed on concert series throughout the US and Germany and has also performed with the New York Philharmonic, the American Symphony Orchestra and the Fairfield Academy of Period Instruments.
Paolo Bordignon
Associate Director of Music
and Director of the Choristers
Paolo Bordignon has received critical acclaim for performances ranging from “outstanding... lively and distinctive” interpretations of early music to “compelling” performances of avant-garde repertoire throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. His diverse engagements have included recitals at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and St. Eustache in Paris, a performance for New York Fashion Week, and conducting appearances on NBC’s Today Show.
Paolo was a featured soloist at the inauguration of Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, performing the New York premiere of Philip Glass’s Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra. He serves as harpsichordist of the New York Philharmonic and has performed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Ars Nova Copenhagen, as well as a Juilliard Gala performance with Renee Fleming and Wynton Marsalis.
He has appeared on CNN, NPR, the CBC, and on Korean and Japanese national television with Orpheus and the Sejong string orchestra, performing with Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, Kyung-Wha Chung, Cho-Liang Lin, Gil Shaham, Youngok Shin, and Lynn Harrell. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has collaborated with Itzhak Perlman, David Robertson, Bobby McFerrin, Paul Hillier and, in 2008, with Midori on a series of concerts for Lincoln Center’s Great Performers of Lincoln Center performing Bach and Schnittke.
A strong advocate of new music, Paolo has worked with composers such as Elliott Carter (performing his Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano), Jean Guillou, Stephen Hartke, Christopher Theophanides, and Melinda Wagner. As harpsichordist for Jackson Hole’s Grand Teton Music Festival, he was recently a featured soloist with the Festival Orchestra in performances led by Reinhard Goebel, founder of Musica Antiqua Köln. He has participated at festivals in Bruges, Zurich, Aspen, Bridgehampton, at the Bard Music Festival, and at the Aston Magna Academy.
He recently presented a series of ten recitals in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Musical Instruments. With the Clarion Music Society, he gave the world première of some newly-rediscovered, unpublished works of Felix Mendelssohn, including a Sonata for Violin and Pianoforte, and the composer’s only surviving song cycle.
As associate director of music at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City, Paolo helps to oversee one of the nation’s preeminent church music programs. He directs the Boy & Girl Choristers, and plays the Aeolian-Skinner pipe organs of the Chapel and Church, the latter being one of the world’s largest. Deeply committed to training the next generation of musicians, he serves on the VOICE Choral Music Charter School board of directors and is on the faculty of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J.
Paolo earned Master's and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Juilliard School. He studied organ with John Weaver, harpsichord with Lionel Party, and is the first person to graduate Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music with a degree in harpsichord (a double major with organ). Doctoral studies brought him to Leipzig and Berlin, where he examined Johann Sebastian Bach's autograph and original performance materials of Cantata No. 67, Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ.
From 1993 to1996 he was on the roster of associate organists for the Wanamaker Grand Court organ in Philadelphia, the world’s largest operational pipe organ. Paolo is an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Music and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, having won the major prizes. Born in Toronto of Italian heritage, Paolo studied organ with John Tuttle and received early musical training at St. Michael's Choir School.