10/15/2026
Friends, colleagues,
Please come hear this amazing, young, organist!
We are happy to announce that Dr. Jakob Hamilton will be the organist for this year's Bach cantata! In addition to playing the cantata, he will favor us with opening and closing voluntaries that exhibit the finest features of St. Mark's Zimmer-Colby organ.
Join us on November 15, 2026 as we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ through the gift of music!
Dr. Jakob Hamilton is a physician, concert musician, and composer from Bradenton, Florida with a passion for patient care, cancer research, and the intersection of medicine and the arts. Dr. Hamilton first began playing the piano at age 12 and organ at age 17, where he took lessons with Marilyn Spencer at Florida Enrichment Academy in 2009. In 2014, he won the Anna Maria Island Concert Choir and Orchestra Young Artist Competition and was named the orchestra’s young artist of the year. He went on to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a recipient of the Morehead-Cain Scholarship and graduated with highest honors. He holds a B.A. in Music and B.S. in Biology, studying piano with Dr. Clara Yang and organ with Dr. Susan Moeser.
During his undergraduate years, Dr. Hamilton performed alongside the Grammy-nominated organist, Cameron Carpenter, on his 2017 and 2018 international tours throughout the United States and Europe while completing his honors thesis, The International Touring Organ: Redefining the Physical and Musical Limitations of Concert Organ Performance in the 21st Century. In addition to performing, Dr. Hamilton has composed over 200 works for piano, organ, and orchestral ensembles. He served as the head of the Carolina Film Association Composition Guild and his scores have premiered throughout Florida and North Carolina.
Dr. Hamilton later continued his training at the UNC GIllings School for Global Public Health, earning his M.S. in Nutritional Biochemistry and Nutrigenomics in 2021 before completing his medical degree at the University of Florida College of Medicine in 2025. During medical school, he received multiple awards for his cancer research and founded “Gators Got Talent,” the college’s first student talent show, which has raised thousands of dollars to provide free healthcare in Gainesville clinics. He is currently an internal medicine resident at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, where he plans to pursue a career in oncology.
