East Studio Building, JS222
Education
- B.M., Bachelor of Music, Indiana University, 1981
- M.M., Master of Music, Indiana University, 1982
- D.M., Doctor of Music, Northwestern University, 1988
Biography
Janette Fishell is professor of music in organ and chair of the Organ Department at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she teaches applied organ and organ pedagogy.
A graduate of Indiana University and Northwestern University, she is a recitalist and teacher of international standing. Her students have distinguished themselves in academia, concerts and as prizewinners in competitions throughout the U.S. and Europe, and successfully serve in churches and on university faculties throughout the U.S. and Asia.
A regular performer in many of the world’s greatest concert venues, published author of numerous articles and a book on service playing published by Abingdon Press, a composer whose choral and organ music is published by Morning Star Music, St. James Press and Wayne Leupold Editions, and recording artist, she is widely recognized as a leading authority on the organ music of Czech composer Petr Eben, the subject of her doctoral dissertation and the first study of his organ works in English. She has begun a decade-long cycle in which she will record the complete organ works of that composer with a companion video series entitled Velvet Revolution.
In addition to a multi-year performance project in which she performed the complete organ works of J.S. Bach, her recent recording of Beethoven’s organ works was recently released by NAXOS as part of their opera omnia collection of that composer’s music.
Active as a church musician for many decades she has held two appointments as Interim Organist at Christ Church (Episcopal) Cathedral, Indianapolis, and was Organist/Choirmaster at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Greenville, NC and The Episcopal Church of All Saints, Indianapolis.
She was named Keyboard Arts, Inc. “Young Organist of the Year” while an undergraduate, held a Distinguished Professorship at East Carolina University’s School of Music, and received both the 2012 Oswald Gleason Ragatz Distinguished Organist Alumni Award and 2014 Paul Creston Award in recognition of contributions to sacred music. In 2020, she was presented the Indiana University Bicentennial Medal in recognition of distinguished and distinctive service to the university.