Martin Haselböck / Austria

Born: Austria As a conductor, organist, and composer, Martin Haselböck has distinguished himself in many diverse ways in international music life. After studies in Vienna and Paris, and winning international competitions, he earned first an outstanding reputation as a solo organist, performing under the direction of conductors Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Muti, and Stein, as well as making over fifty solo CDs.

While in his official role as Court Organist for Vienna and responsible for an extensive repertoire of classical church music, Martin Haselböck began an intense commitment to conducting. This led to his founding in 1985 the now-famous Vienna Akademie Ensemble. With this orchestra, he established a year-round cycle of concerts for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in the Great Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. It has now become a favorite of guest artists from the music centers of Europe and Japan.

Over 60 CDs, with repertoire from Baroque to 20th century vocal and instrumental works under the direction of Martin Haselböck, have been released. Such a prodigious output of excellent recordings has earned him the Deutsches Schallplatten critics' prize as well as the Hungarian Liszt Prize.

Martin Haselböck has also been a guest conductor for numerous orchestras: Vienna Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Dresdner Philharmonie, Flemish National Philharmonic, Radio Orchestra Hilversum, and the National Philharmonics of Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Over the past year in the USA, he made his conducting debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. By now, the main focus of his work lies in the exchange between Baroque and Classical works. With the Hamburger Symphoniker, he leads a yearly cycle with works of Viennese classics in the Hamburg Musikhalle. With numerous festivals--those of the Cologne Philharmonic, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, MozartFest in Würzburg-he has been a guest with his Wiener Akademie as Artist-In-Residence. Slated also in the next two seasons are symphonic guest conducting engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Detroit Symphony-the last two being debuts.

Since his debut with the Händel Festival in Göttingen, Martin Haselböck's career as an opera conductor is also unfolding. He has conducted several times at the Zürich Opera, and he performed Mozart operas in new productions in the Theatre im Pfalzbau Ludwigshafen for the first time in Germany with historic instruments. His Don Giovanni in 1991 earned him the Mozart Prize of the City of Prague. In 2000-2001 he created with the Wiener Akademie new productions of Georg Frideric Handel's Acis and Galatea, Gassmann's La Contessina, and Haydn's Die Feuersbrunst. 2002 followed with the first productions with the Festival in Schwetzingen (Benda's Il buon marito) and Salzburg (G.F. Handel's Radamisto). In 2004, he will lead productions of G.F. Handel's Il trionfo del tempo (Salzburger Festspiel), Mozart's Il re pastore (Klangbogen Wien), G.F. Handel's Radamisto (touring to Spain, Istanbul, Venice, Israel Festival, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam), and a concert version of Nicola Porpora's Il Gedeone for Musica Angelica in Los Angeles.

When not conducting, Martin Haselböck is busy unearthing long lost vocal/instrumental works in the dusty archives of Kiev and Vienna, finding unpublished gems by Biber, Nicola Porpora, Johann Joseph Fux, Muffat, and the Bach family. These he transcribes and resurrects in historical re-creations for his Wiener Akademie Ensemble and festivals around the world.

James Higdon / USA

James Higdon is Professor of Organ and Director of the Division of Organ and Church Music at the University of Kansas. He studied at St. Olaf College, Northwestern University, and received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Eastman School of Music. He has studied with Edmund Ladouceur, Robert Kendall, Karel Paukert, David Craighead, and Catharine Crozier and Marie-Claire Alain.

Higdon's recordings include: Dupré, Organ Music of France and Camille SAINT SAËNS (Arkay), and Jehan Alain: Complete Works for Organ (RBW). He is also featured on two recordings with the renowned Kansas City Chorale. Recently released is Music from Bales Organ Recital Hall (DCD Records), the inaugural recording of the new Hellmuth Wolff organ in the Bales Organ Recital Hall at the University of Kansas.

Recent European concert tours (from 1992 to 1998) include recitals at Notre Dame Cathedral and La Madeleine in Paris, France; Northern Germany; recitals at the Frederick Chopin Academy in Warsaw and master classes for organ students from conservatories throughout Poland; recitals in Czechoslovakia.

The University of Kansas presented him with a W.T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence at the beginning of the 1997-1998 academic year. He is the first University of Kansas professor from the arts to be recognized with this prestigious award. He has had five students win Fulbright Awards during his tenure at the University of Kansas including an undergraduate student who just won a Fulbright-Hays award for study in Germany during the 1999-2000 academic year.

Mireille Lagacé / Canada

Organist, harpsichordist, teacher, born in St-Jérôme in 1935, Mireille Lagacé studied in Montreal first with Germaine Malépart (piano), Conrad Letendre (organ), and Gabriel Cusson (theory). She went to Austria in 1956 on a Quebec government scholarship and studied organ with Anton Heiller. Returning to Montreal, she continued her organ and harpsichord studies 1957-62 with her husband, Bernard, and took part in the activities of the group Ares Organi.

In 1959, Mrs Lagacé was awarded a first prize at the Organ Competition of the Montreal Centre of the Royal Canadian College of Organists (John-Robb Organ Competition). Between 1962 and 1965 she won several international prizes (Munich 1962, and Geneva, 1962, 1965), and in 1964 she founded the Ensemble Couperin-le-Grand. In 1977 she was chosen for a Victor M. Lynch-Staunton Award by the Canada Council for the Arts. As a specialist in baroque music, harpsichord and organ, she has been a very active teacher in several schools in Canada and USA. She is currently pursuing her teaching career at the Conservatoire de Montréal.

She has pursued a busy career as a soloist and chamber player in Canada, the USA, and Western Europe. Some works have been dedicated to her by some composers. Among them: Jean Papineau-Couture and Jean Lesage. In Paris, from 1978 until 1980, she recorded a considerable portion of Bach's complete works for harpsichord for Calliope. In 1989, following her performance of the Goldberg Variations at the Erskine and American Church in Montréal, the newspaper Le Devoir "A superb and moving musician, an exceptional harpsichordist, Mireille Lagacé performed this formidable and monumental score with the serene assurance of an artist who has long since matured her interpretation."

Susan Landale / France

Susan Landale was born in Scotland and began her musical education in Edinburgh. After graduating from Edinburgh University (BMus), where she was awarded a number of prizes and scholarships, she was invited by the great French organist André Marchal to study with him in Paris. The following year she was appointed titular organist of St. George's Anglican Church, Paris, a post she held for eighteen years. Today, from her home in the Paris suburbs, she pursues a many-sided career of concert organist, church organist and professor.

Winner of the first International Organ Playing Competition at the St Alban's International Festival, England, she has firmly established a worldwide reputation as a brilliant concert artist in solo recitals, broadcasts on national and international radio networks and television, concerts with orchestra, chamber music and in performances with instrumental and vocal ensembles. She has appeared as a guest artist at many festivals as far apart as Melbourne (Australia), Reykjavik (Iceland), St. Albans (England), Calgary (Canada) and Edinburgh (Scotland).

She has been a featured soloist with many of the leading orchestras in Paris, London, Prague, Hamburg, Heidelberg and other European cities.

Her numerous CD recordings of the works of Olivier Messiaen, Louis Vierne, Charles Tournemire and César Franck have received international acclaim and the highest awards from the French critics.

Particularly esteemed as a teacher, Susan Landale is Professor of Organ at the Royal Academy of Music in London, after many years as professor at the National Regional Conservatoire in Rueil-Malmaison (Ile de France), where her pupils, from all over the world, won prizes in many national and international competitions. She devotes the rest of her time to concert performance, and recordings, presenting seminars and master classes as well as private teaching. She has served on the most prestigious international juries: St Albans, Calgary, Chartres, Prague, Odense, Lübeck, Warsaw, Brno. She is an active member of the French State Commission for Organs, the Committee of the Grand Prix de Chartres, the Commission des Orgues for the Diocese of Paris, and she is the President of the Académie André Marchal.

Author of several articles on contemporary music, her studies of the organ works of Olivier Messiaen and Petr Eben have been translated into several languages. Her interpretation of the most significant works of these composers is considered to be particularly authentic.

Susan Landale is organist of the Cathedral Saint-Louis des Invalides, Paris. In recognition of her world-wide career and commitment, the Royal College of Organists awarded her, in 2003, the distinction of "Fellow honoris causa".

Jon Laukvik / Germany

Jon Laukvik received his earliest music training as organist and pianist in his native town Oslo. He went on to study organ at the University of Music (Musikhochschule) in Cologne with Prof. Michael Schneider and harpsichord with Prof. Hugo Ruf. He also studied organ privately with Marie-Claire Alain in Paris.

In 1977, Jon Laukvik was awarded both the First Prize and the Bach Prize in the International Organ Competition in Nuremberg. In 1980, he was named professor at the University of Music and Interpretative Art in Stuttgart. Since 2001 he is also professor at the University of Music (Norges musikkhøgskole) in Oslo.

Jon Laukvik has toured throughout Europe, Japan, Korea, Israel and the United States. He is frequently in demand to serve on competition juries (e.g. Chartres, St Albans, Odense) and to teach seminars and masterclasses.

He is author of a highly successful organ tutor Orgelschule zur historischen Aufführungspraxis. His compositions include works for solo organ, organ with other instruments and vocal and instrumental works. 

 

 

 

 

Carol Terry / USA

Carole Terry's career as a renowned performer and teacher of the organ and harpsichord have taken her to many cities and universities throughout the United States, as well as Europe and the Far East. Especially known for her performances and recordings of German Romantic music, she is also an expert on the physiology of keyboard performance, a field in which she is readying a major publication.

In 2006 she performed in the Westfield Center Conference in Victoria, B.C on the newly installed Wolff organ at Christ Church Cathedral as well as the Institute for Sacred Music at the University of Iowa. She has appeared at The Bamboo Organ Festival, Manila, Philippines, as well as The Attersee Barock Akademie, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, in Lübeck, Germany, and the Hermans Organ Festival in Italy.

She adjudicated the prestigious 2000 International Musachino Organ Competition in Tokyo, Japan, and participated in various summer academies such as the International Summer School for Young Organists in Oundle, Great Britain and the Mount Royal College Organ Academy and International Summer School, Calgary, Canada. In September 2004 she was the first American organist to perform in the organ concert hall of Perm, in the Russian Federation, having been in Kaliningrad the year before to adjudicate the Third Mikael Tariverdiev International Organ Competition.

In the United States has participated in such conferences and seminars as the San Anselmo Organ Festival, The Historical Organ in America, and the Oregon Bach Festival and the Montreat Festival of Worship and Music in North Carolina in addition to having been a featured recitalist at many conventions of the American Guild of Organists, including the July 2000 AGO Convention in Seattle. As Resident Organist and Curator for the Seattle Symphony, from 2000 to 2003, she inaugurated the new C.B. Fisk organ in Seattle's acclaimed Benaroya Hall, and played many solo concerti in addition to monumental works for organ and orchestra. Her recordings include Brombaugh Organs of the Northwest and The Complete Organ Works of Johannes Brahms (based on the Henle edition) for the Musical Heritage label.

As a harpsichordist she recorded works of Albright, Persichetti, Cowell, and Rorem for CRI, and baroque chamber music for Crystal Records (with violist Yizhak Schotten). Her most recent recording, Carole Terry in Schwerin, is a two-CD set of German romantic organ music recorded on the notable 1871 Ladegast organ at Schwerin Cathedral, Germany. Carole Terry is Professor of Organ and Harpsichord at the University of Washington School of Music in Seattle.

Thomas Trotter/united kingdom

Thomas Trotter is one of Britain’s most widely admired musicians.  The excellence of his musicianship is reflected internationally in his musical partnerships.  He performs as soloist with conductors Sir Simon Rattle, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Chailly, Sir Charles Mackerras and many others.  He has performed recitals in Berlin’s “Philharmonie”, the “Gewandhaus” in Leipzig, both the “Musikverein” and the “Konzerthaus” in Vienna and London’s Royal Festival Hall. He is regularly asked to perform on major historic instruments He performs with leading orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic orchestras, and in the United States he has appeared with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.  In May 2001 he was the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society award for Best Instrumentalist, the first organist to win this award.  Past winners include Andras Schiff, Itzak Perlman and Julian Bream.

 

Thomas Trotter’s career is also firmly founded on his relationship with the City of Birmingham in England where he was appointed City Organist in 1983 in succession to Sir George Thalben-Ball.  He is also Organist at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey and Visiting Fellow in Organ Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.  Earlier in his career he was organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge and later continued his studies with Marie-Claire Alain in Paris, winning the Prix de Virtuosite in her class.  He won First Prize at the St. Albans International Organ Competition in 1979.

 

Alongside his weekly recitals in Birmingham, Thomas Trotter regularly performs throughout the United States and Europe. An active recording artist, his releases of Messiaen and Mozart have been named “Critics’ Choice” by The Gramophone magazine, and he received a Grand Prix du Disque for his recording of music by Liszt in 1995.  He was consultant for the new Marcussen organ in Manchester’s newly-built Bridgewater Hall, and also for the new organ in Birmingham at Symphony Hall. 

Daniel Zaretsky / Russia

Daniel ZARETSKY was born in Leningrad in 1964, and studied piano and organ performance at the Leningrad State Conservatory. He completed his Concert Diploma and Teaching Certificate in 1989 under the direction of Professors E.Bazanov and N.Oksentjan and in 1993 graduates with the Concert Diploma with honours at the Sibelius Music Academy in Helsinki ( Finland ). He followed master classes with many professors of the likes of  Marie-Claire Alain, Jean Guillou, Guy Bovet and David Sanger.

Zaretsky has performed since 1988 in all the former Soviet Union's important venues, including the Philharmonic Halls of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the Cathedral of Riga, as well as in Czechoslovakia, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Great Britain, South America and the USA.

In 1991 he won the National Organ Competition and took Third Prize in the Speyer International Organ Competition in Germany. He has also made recordings for Russian, Swiss, German and Danish radios.

In recognition of his brilliant and successful career, President Putin awarded Zaretsky the title of Russian honorific artist in 2006.  

At the moment he is Organist of the famous St.Petersburg Philharmonic Hall, and teaches the organ at the Music College of St. Petersburg's Conservatory. He also teaches the organ at the Nizhnij Novgorod State Conservatory.