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Autobiographical Recollections of Charles-Marie Widor
Autobiographical Recollections of Charles-Marie Widor Edited and translated by John R. Near Boydell and Brewer / University of Rochester Press, 2024 ISBN 9781648250866 / 298 pp / £85 (hard copy), £25 (ebook) Reviewed by Robert James Stove Brash to the nth degree will...
L’Orgue Baroque en Aragon
Jusepe Ximénez: Obra de Ileno de Premier Tono; Sacris Solemnis/Garcia Baylo (?), Pedro Pifant? (1473): Vexilla Regis/Andrés de sola: Registro alto de Primer Tono/Melchar Robledo: Domine Iesu Christe/Sebastián Aguillera de Heredia: Tiento grande de Cuarto Tono; La...
Westminster Abbey organ scholar Carolyn Craig appointed Junior Fellow at RBC
American organist and organ scholar of Westminster Abbey, Carolyn Craig has been appointed Junior Fellow at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, part of Birmingham City University. She will take up the appointment in January 2024. Originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, and...
Registration organ competition IMOCG 2024 is open
The third edition of the Dutch 'International Martini Organ Competition Groningen' (IMOCG) will take place in the summer of 2024, in the week of 28 July to 3 August in the Dutch town of Groningen. This time, the competition will feature three monumental organs. After...
In Memoriam Peter Dickinson
Peter Dickinson died at the age of 88 on June 16, led a distinguished multifaceted career of over six decades as performer, academic, author and editor. His prolific writings and his compositional oeuvre in many genres radically espouse the postmodern aesthetic at the...
National Schools Singing Programme Expansion
The leading choral education programme in the United Kingdom expands to tackle declining engagement with music at state schools. Recently, the National Schools Singing Programme [NSSP], an ambitious music education initiative covering the majority of the UK’s Catholic...
Northern Ireland International Organ Competition Returns to Armargh: August 21-23, 2023
The 11th Northern Ireland International Organ Competition (NIIOC) will take place in Armagh from 21–23 August 2023, returning to the cathedral city where it was founded for the first time since the pandemic. The competition jury will be chaired by the Canadian...
Woman Composer Repertoire Day – Come and Sing
The Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) and Society of Women Organists (SWO) are hosting a joint Come and Sing event, showcasing new music written by female composers, on Saturday July 15 at St Giles Cripplegate, London EC2Y 8DA. The workshop is led by Katherine...
Applications invited for the UK’s first prep School pipe organ scholarships
Salisbury Cathedral School is proud to announce the launch of a new pipe organ scholarship programme, the first in a UK preparatory school. The new ‘Griffiths Chapel Organ Scholarships’, will support two organ scholars during Upper Prep, school years 7 and 8,...
Jens Korndörfer appointed associate professor of organ at Baylor University from August 2023
Jens Korndörfer leads a busy career as performer, educator, and church musician; he has performed to critical acclaim at prestigious venues and festivals such as Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, the Montreal Bach Festival, the Cathedrals in Washington, Berlin,...
New Director of Music appointed at Jesus College
Benjamin Sheen has accepted the post of Director of Music at Jesus College, Cambridge. He will join the College on 1 January 2023, succeeding Richard Pinel, who has been appointed Director of Music at St Mary’s Bourne Street in London. Ben currently holds the post of...
Bach and friends organ series
Details of Bach and Friends: The Orgelbüchlein Completed series presented by the Royal College of Organists and sponsored by Professor Christopher Wood. This will comprise the following ten events: Saturday 24 September 2022 Temple Church, 10am - ‘Laws and Canons’...
Cathedral organists rejoice in newly installed Woodstock practice organ
A two manual Vincent Woodstock practice instrument has been installed in the Song School at Peterborough Cathedral. The organ was constructed in 2011 and became available when its owner, Simon Johnson, moved from his role as Organist at St Paul’s Cathedral to become...
A new starter instrument for the United Kingdom: The Keyboard Studies Programme Melodica
It is no secret that music education in the UK has suffered as a result of cuts in budgets, and the pandemic has only further reduced opportunities for British children to engage with music. It is vital that music education survives in schools, if not for the...
Visually Impaired Teenager Wins Prestigious Musical Scholarship
Sixteen year old Ivan Deb has won the first Aprahamian Scholarship for young organists which includes a brand new two-manuals-and-pedals home organ, on which he can practise. The Arabesque Trust, which set up the scholarship to help visually impaired young organists,...
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The International Kaija Saariaho Organ Composition Competition
The International Kaija Saariaho Organ Composition Competition, organised to celebrate Helsinki Music Centre Concert Hall’s new Rieger organ that is to be finished in the autumn of 2023, received 98 participating compositions from all over the world. The jury, chaired by composer Kaija Saariaho, presented altogether 11 main prizes. Moreover, Suomen Säveltäjät ry (The Society of Finnish Composers), Kirkkomusiikin Säveltäjät ry (The Church Music Composers’ Association) and Lahden kansainvälinen urkuviikko (The Lahti Organ Festival) presented special prizes for the compositions of their choosing. All award-winning compositions will be performed at the Helsinki Music Centre by the summer of 2025. The pieces will be performed by notable international organists, such as Amelie Held and Franz Danksagmüller from Germany, and Markku Hietaharju and Ville Urponen from Finland.
The winners of the Organ Composition Competition’s Series A, which is the concerto category, and the recipients of the 12,000 euro main prizes are Tomi Räisänen from Finland and Federico Perotti from Italy. Their compositions will premier in the concerts of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra during 2024. In the chamber orchestra category, the jury decided to award two compositions. The winning compositions were written by Artturi Rönkä from Finland and Bálint Karosi from Hungary. The Sibelius Academy Symphony Orchestra and the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra will perform the compositions during the spring seasons of 2024 and 2025. The winners of the solo category are Tomasz Szczepanik from Poland, Luc Antonini and Yves Balmer from France, Zacharias Ehnvall from Sweden, Simon Holt from England, Ere Lievonen from Finland, Mauricio Silva Orendain from Mexico, and Chang Qi from China.
In addition to Kaija Saariaho, the jury included chief conductor Nicholas Collon and chief conductor Susanna Mälkki, organist and composer Francesco Filidei as well as organist and composer, Doctor of Music, Jan Lehtola, organist and Doctor of Music Susanne Kujala, and professor, Doctor of Music, Olli Porthan. The competition was funded by the Helsinki Music Centre Foundation and the Alfred Kordelin Foundation. The prizes were funded by the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation. The competition was organized by Helsinki Music Centre Organ Association.
The new Helsinki Music Centre concert organ, impressive even with its façade, will be completed during the summer of 2023 and it will be inaugurated on New Year’s Day January 1st 2024. The organ that has aroused significant international interest will have 124 registers grouped in several divisions. It will be the largest organ in Finland and Scandinavia, one of the largest in Europe, and the world’s largest organ in a concert hall.
