Jan Kraybill

GRAMMY®-nominated artist Jan Kraybill is a concert organist, pianist, and harpsichordist; a dynamic speaker, educator, church musician, and consultant; and an enthusiastic cheerleader for the power of music to change lives for the better.

In addition to maintaining a very active international concert schedule, Dr. Kraybill is organ conservator at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, and organist-in-residence at the international headquarters of Community of Christ in Independence, Missouri. In these roles she plays and oversees the care of three of the Kansas City metro area's largest pipe organs: the 113-rank Aeolian-Skinner (installed in 1959) and 102-rank Casavant (1993) at Community of Christ's Auditorium and Temple, and the Kauffman Center's 102-rank Julia Irene Dennie-Kauffman Casavant (2012).

Throughout her career Jan has performed as both a solo and collaborative musician, designed and led international hymn festivals, taught workshops on a variety of topics, and inspired audiences and congregations. While in high school in Colby, Kansas, she was invited to play her first European piano recital in Andover, England. Since then, she has performed in many venues in North America and Europe, and in Australia, Russia, South Korea, and Tahiti. Her multiple tours of the United Kingdom have included organ concerts at the grand cathedrals of Chester, Exeter, and St. Paul’s in London. In 2015 she designed and led a hymn festival at the International Gathering of Hymn Societies at Cambridge University. 

Jan has been a featured artist and teacher at regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists (AGO), the American Choral Directors Association, the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, and other musicians’ organizations, and has been heard on many episodes of American Public Media’s national program Pipedreams. She has collaborated with ensembles such as the Bach Aria Soloists, the Phoenix Chorale, Kantorei Denver, the GRAMMY®-winning Kansas City Chorale, the GRAMMY®-nominated Kansas City Symphony and Symphony Chorus, and others. 

Several solo CDs and collaborative recordings are available. Jan's first solo CD, Two by 2: Two Organ Symphonies on Two Magnificent Organs, features both of Community of Christ’s pipe organs. Rejoice and Remember contains hymn arrangements for piano. The Auditorium Organ: Fifty Years of Excellence celebrated that organ’s 50^th anniversary in 2009. Solo CDs of the Julia Irene Dennie-Kauffman Casavant were released by Reference Recordings in 2014 and 2019: Organ Polychrome features music by French composers, and The Orchestral Organ is a disc of transcriptions. Jan's most recent commercially-available album, Marked for Grace, was produced by ProOrgano and released in June 2021 by Naxos. A collaborative disc with the Kansas City Symphony containing Saint-Saëns' “Organ” Symphony, produced by Reference Recordings, was nominated for a GRAMMY® in 2015.  Jan's solo surround-sound disc with Reference, The Orchestral Organ, received three nominations in 2020, including Best Classical Instrumental Solo. 

Dr. Kraybill's degrees in music education and piano and organ performance were earned at Kansas State University and the Conservatory of Music and Dance in Kansas City. In 2010 she achieved the distinction of Fellow of the AGO, the highest certification level available for organists. She has served in many local, regional, and national roles in the AGO, The Hymn Society, and the Master Teacher Institute, including Executive Director of The Hymn Society in the U.S. and Canada. In 2024, The Hymn Society awarded her their highest honor, naming her a Fellow of The Hymn Society (FHS). She is a member of Mensa. Her extra-musical interests include antiquing, lace making, and riding her Harley-Davidson motorcycle. 

Explore www.jankraybill.com for more information and Jan’s concert schedule.