Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast #121!

Today's guest is an American organist, carillonneur and choir conductor Dr. Mark Konewko. Mark has been carillonneur at Marquette University since 1999 where he began as Interim Chorus Director in fall 2010. He holds an MBA from Cardinal Stritch University as well as a Masters of Music Degree in Organ Performance from the American Conservatory of Music. He studied carillon at the University of Utrecht in Amersfoort and has played worldwide in places such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

In addition to being carillonneur at Marquette, he has an extensive back ground in vocal music and choral conducting, and he teaches courses in music appreciation, business of music, carillon discovery, and music technology. He also serves as Director of Music at Mother of Good Counsel Catholic Parish in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

We have met in Vilnius where Mark presented his research on "La Nativite" by Olivier Messiaen for the international conference on music composition at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater.

In this conversation we talk about his finding in La Nativite and his experience of playing carillon.

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.

And if you like it, please head over to iTunes and leave a rating and review. This helps to get this podcast in front of more organists who would find it helpful.

Thanks for caring.

​Listen to the conversation

You can reach Mark by email at:
mark dot konewko at marquette dot edu

Relevant link:
http://www.marquette.edu/music/faculty.shtml

Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast #120!

Today's guest is Dr. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra who is an American organist, international performer, composer, liturgical musician, scholar, and pedagogue.

She returns to our show to introduce our listeners to the newly published Vol. 2 of her treatise "Bach and the Art of Improvisation". Here's our previous conversation about Vol. 1.

Simultaneously revolutionary and realistic, Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra resuscitates historic improvisation from relevant treatises and documentation of Bach's improvisation pedagogy in counterpoint with tried and true applications. She incrementally guides the reader from improvising cadences, chorales, partitas, and dances in Volume One to improvising interludes & cadenzas, preludes, fantasias, continuo playing, and ultimately, fugues in Volume Two of Bach and the Art of Improvisation. The chapters on continuo playing alone beckon reform of current practice.

Pamela invites those willing to immerse themselves in improvisation to embody consummate musicianship as theory, history, aural perception, and soul-communicative playing come to life in practice and performance.

​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.

And if you like it, please head over to iTunes and leave a rating and review. This helps to get this podcast in front of more organists who would find it helpful.

Thanks for caring.

​Listen to the conversation

Relevant links:
http://www.pamelaruiterfeenstra.com/bach__the_art_of_improvisation_2​
http://www.pamelaruiterfeenstra.com/bach__continuo_bai_2_audio/

Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast #119!

Today's guest is Nicholas Papadimitriou, an organist, pianist and composer originally from Greece but currently studying and working in the Netherlands.

Born in June of the year 1993, he started studying the piano at the age of six with his first teacher Domenica Mikaits.
Two years later he joined an orchestra for young children, in which he participated for six years.

At the age of thirteen, he joined the Philippos Nakas Conservatory in Athens where he studied the piano with Athanasios Grozas.

At the age of fifteen, he started studying the Organ privately with Zafeiria Vassiliou in the Megaron Concert Hall and in the Anglican Church in Athens.

In 2009 he enrolled in the Conservatory's Department of Music Theory where he studied with Michalis Rousselakis. During this time, he also participated in Choir Direction classes with Valeri Oreskin and has been a member of the Conservatory's choir.

In 2012 he received his degree in Music Theory with a Distinction.

In 2011 he was accepted in the Music Department of the Ionian University in Corfu, but he interrupted his studies there as he decided to pursue his goals abroad instead.

After extensively exploring the possibilities offered by various music institutions around Europe, he decided to turn his attention to the Netherlands.

In 2013 he was admitted to the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where he has since been studying the organ with Jacques van Oormerssen, Pieter van Dijk, and Matthias Havinga. In this time he also studied piano with Peter Besseling, Improvisation and Basso Continuo with Miklós Spányi and followed conducting lessons with Lucas Vis and Jos Vermunt.

In the period of 2013-2017, he participated in various concerts and has performed in venues such as the ‘Orgelpark’, the Waalse Kerk, the Oosterkerk and the Moses en Aaronkerk in Amsterdam. During this time he also participated numerous times in Masterclasses by Louis Robilliard.

In September 2015 he was appointed Organist/Conductor in the Pastoor van Arskerk in Haarlem.

In September 2016 he was appointed student assistant in the Conservatorium van Amsterdam for certain theory subjects.

In October 2016 he started working as an Organist in the Pelgrimskerk in Badhoevedorp.

​​In June 2017 he graduated from the Bachelor's and was admitted to the Master's Program, where he is currently focusing on Improvisation & Innovative Music Pedagogy. 

In the meantime, he also published his first book, 'The Misleading Tone', an innovative teaching method about keyboard improvisation.

In this conversation Nicholas shares his insights about his misical experiments, storytelling and translating the message of the composer to the listener. Make sure you listen to the very end of this interview because I ask him about what are the 3 steps in becoming a better organist. I ask this question nearly every guest on the show and all of them give a different answer. Nicholas is not an exception.

​Listen to the conversation

Relevant link:
https://www.nicholaspapadimitriou.com