Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast #83!
Today's guests are Lydia Vroegindeweij from the Netherlands, the Dutch organist and founder of OrgelKids and Erin Scheessele from the United States who helps bringing OrgelKids to America with OrgelKids USA. Orgelkids is an educational pipe organ curriculum and kit dreamed up by Dutch organist Lydia Vroegindeweij. Lydia enlisted the help of organ builder Wim Janssen to build the first and only two Orgelkids kits in existence. With Orgelkids, young children are empowered to assemble a working two rank, 2-octave pipe organ in under an hour. Orgelkids can be deployed to schools, music festivals, Maker Faires, museums, bringing the King of Instruments to children. See below for how Orgelkids complements AGO’s outreach programs. Erin's son Peter is 7 years old and he loves pipe organs. He’s an active member of the Eugene Chapter of the American Guild of Organists (AGO). Peter likes to play pipe organs, but he sure would like to be able to build pipe organs, too. A Google search for “pipe organ kit” led Peter to Orgelkids. Peter wrote to Lydia Vroegindeweij, founder of Orgelkids in the Netherlands, asking if she’d be willing to share her schematics for building a kit and for them to bring Orgelkids to the USA. Lydia’s prompt reply was an enthusiastic “Ja!” and she expressed joy that her idea of how to bring the pipe organ to children could grow and reach a wider audience. Peter is an enthusiastic ambassador for the organ, and operated a lemonade stand in 2014 benefiting the restoration of a local pipe organ. As he is still too young for most of AGO’s outreach programming, Peter is eager to bring Orgelkids to his peers. In this conversation we talk about this beautiful idea to bring the pipe organ closer to children. Enjoy and share your comments below. And don't forget to help spread the word about the SOP Podcast by sharing it with your organist friends. Thanks for caring. Relevant links: http://orgelkids.nl http://www.orgelkidsusa.org
Abbey. His responsibilities at both institutions have involved playing at numerous events of national importance, including the 60th Anniversary of the Coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II, and accompanying the world famous choirs.
He completed both undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music whilst studying with David Titterington. During his studentship, he was awarded numerous scholarships and prizes, most notably HRH Princess Alice the Duchess of Gloucester’s Prize for exemplary studentship at Graduation in 2013. He was appointed the Pidem Organ Fellow in 2014 and to the Junior Royal Academy of Music where he is now an organ tutor. He continues his repertoire studies with David Titterington, Jon Laukvik and Patrick Russill, and improvisation with Thierry Escaich. Peter Holder has previously held posts at St Albans Cathedral, Southwell Minster and The Royal Hospital Chelsea. He has broadcast for BBC radio and television, and performed in the 2012 BBC Proms with the combined Orchestra of the Royal Academy of Music and Juilliard School, conducted by John Adams. As a continuo player, he has performed with St James’s Baroque at the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music’s annual concert at Westminster Abbey. Recent performances include venues such as the Royal Albert Hall; Royal Festival Hall; Reading Town Hall; St John’s Smith Square; Westminster Abbey; the Cathedrals of Gloucester, St Paul’s, and Westminster; Cambridge Summer Music Festival; John Hill Memorial Series at St Lawrence Jewry; Lichfield Festival; and St Albans International Organ Festival. His first solo recording is scheduled for release later this year recorded on the magnificent 1797 Holzhey organ of Neresheim Abbey, featuring the works of members of the Bach family, WA Mozart and Christian Heinrich Rinck. Peter’s solo repertoire is broad and eclectic, and includes transcriptions of celebrated orchestral scores (see link). His concerto repertoire includes works by Handel, Lou Harrison and Poulenc and his orchestral repertoire includes the works of composers such as Duruflé, Elgar, Resphigi, Saint-Säens (Symphony No 3) and Walton. He is also a keen player of both the piano and harmonium, and has performed the prominent roles in Fanshawe African Sanctus and Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle on these respective instruments. In this conversation Peter talks about what does it take to play such magnificent instruments at one of the most important cathedrals in the world and what is the musical life behind it. Enjoy and share your comments below. And don't forget to help spread the word about the SOP Podcast by sharing it with your organist friends. Thanks for caring. Relevant links: http://www.peterholdermusic.co.uk/ https://www.stpauls.co.uk/
Educated at the Conservatory in Milan, she has composed in many genres, developing a personal language that is concerned with the blend of past and present. Her compositions have been performed frequently around the world. Her compositions have appeared on Waterwheel World Water Day Symposium and WPRB radio Princeton NJ, and have been performed in venues such as Harvard University, New York University, Steinway Haus in Hamburg and München, National Center for Performing Arts in Beijing, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, St. Gallen Cathedral, St.George’s Hanover Square in London, Manhattan Central Synagogue in NYC, Oliwa Cathedral in Gdansk, Basilica di Santa Croce in Firenze, and other relevant theaters and churches.
Carlotta Ferrari won the 2nd prize at 2013 edition of Sisì-Frezza competition for women composers held by IFBPW (International Federation of Business and Professional Women). She received the auspices of the President of Italy in 2008 for the premiere of her secular Cantata dedicated to the victims of terrorism. Ferrari’s music appears on several CD recordings, including five all-Ferrari organ CDs: three recorded by Carson Cooman (2014 and 2016) and two by Peter Clark (2015 and 2016). Carlotta Ferrari is a member of International Alliance for Women in Music, and Italian Society for Contemporary Music. Her current research interest lies mainly in contemporary modal music: she is working on RPS modal system, a new compositional grammar in cooperation with Harvard organist and composer Carson Cooman, who first developed it. Also she is currently cooperating with Marco Casazza, violinist and physicist, on the relationship between art and science. She encourages the diffusion of her works worldwide (please visit her Imslp page). In this conversation Carlotta talks about her love of counterpoint, modes, and being a woman composer in today's world. Enjoy and share your comments below. And don't forget to help spread the word about the SOP Podcast by sharing it with your organist friends. Thanks for caring. Relevant links: http://carlottaferrari.altervista.org/ http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Ferrari,_Carlotta https://www.youtube.com/user/missCarlottaFerrar/videos http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Carlotta_Ferrari http://carsoncooman.com/restarting-pitch-space/
executive MBA program at the Université Paris-Dauphine, one of France’s most prestigious research and higher education institutions.
Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Thomas has a beautiful tenor voice and maintains an active career as a singer performing throughout Canada and the United States. Recent performance highlights include Handel’s Messiah and the Magic Flute with the Orchestre symphonique de Longueuil, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Mozart’s Credomesse and Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with the St. Lambert Choral Society, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Berkshire Choral Festival, music of Nico Muhly at the River-to-River Festival in New York City, J.S. Bach’s Cantata Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott in Kitchener, Ontario and Mozart’s Requiem with the Orchestre symphonique de L’Estuaire. Other operatic performances include Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Harry Somers’ Louis Riel, Strauss’ Die Fledermaus and Bernstein’s Candide. Thomas has been heard as a panelist on CBC Radio’s Opera Quiz and was featured on the Bravo Network documentary series The Classical Now. In this conversation Thomas and I talk about the Canadian International Organ Competition (CIOC) which is an organization devoted to the promotion of organ music in Quebec and Canada through discovery activities for the general public, concerts, and an annual festival in Montréal in October. Its Competition, directed by the eminent Canadian organist John Grew every three years, ranks among the most prestigious competitions in the world, with prizes totaling over $100,000. Past Laureates are David Baskeyfield (UK, 2014), Christian Lane (USA, 2011) and Frédéric Champion (France, 2008). Enjoy and share your comments below. And don't forget to help spread the word about the SOP Podcast by sharing it with your organist friends. Thanks for caring. Related link: www.ciocm.org |
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AuthorVidas Pinkevicius' conversations with internationally renown experts from the organ world - concert and church organists, improvisers, educators, composers, organ builders, musicologists and other people who help shape the future of our profession. Archives
November 2017
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