Author Archives: Laurent Bouis

Ádám TABAJDI

Ádám TABAJDI had his first experience with organ thanks to Dr. Dezső Karasszon. He attended Kodály Zoltán Vocational School of Music, first the organ faculty at Dániel Sárosi, then the piano faculty at Béla Grünwald.

In 2009, he was awarded Gold rating at the 3rd International Young Organist’s Meeting  in Szeged, Hungary. From 2011, he continued his studies at Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music under the direction of László Fassang, István Ruppert, János Pálúr and Balázs Szabó.
During his university years, he made several foreign study tours in France and Germany, where he got to know the major historic organs. He spent 6 years altogether as a cantor at the Füredi úti Reformed Congregation in Debrecen and was also member of the New Liszt Ferenc Chamber Choir for 2 years.

In 2016, he was addmitted to the Conservatoire of Paris at the organ faculty, where he is under the guidance of professor Olivier Latry and Michel Bouvard now. During his studies in Paris, he gave concerts regulary in the Royal Chapel of Versaille, in the Church of Saint-Séverin and Saint-Jean Bosco and in the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. For 2017-2018, he was elected the principal intern of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. He was awarded the Fisher Annie Musical Scholarship in 2018.
Besides organ he plays the piano. He has given regular solo and chamber concerts since 2008. In his concerts, he enjoys talking to the audience about the pieces performed. He is a determined interpreter of Hungarian and international contemporary music.

Stephen THARP

Stephen THARP, hailed as “the organist for the connoisseur” (organ – Journal für die Orgel, Germany), “the thinking person’s performer” (Het Orgel), “every bit the equal of any organist” (The American Organist magazine) and “the consummate creative artist” (Michael Barone, Pipedreams), is recognized as one of the great concert organists of our age.
Having played more than 1400 concerts across 50 tours worldwide, Stephen Tharp has built one of the most well-respected international careers in the world, earning him the reputation as the most traveled concert organist of his generation. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World, and has been given the 2011 International Performer of the Year Award by the New York City chapter of the American Guild of Organists. In May 2015, he was given the Paul Creston Award which recognizes artistic excellence by a significant figure in church music and the performing arts.

His list of performances since 1987 includes such distinguished venues as St. Bavo, Haarlem; St. Eustache, Paris; Ste. Croix, Bordeaux; The Hong Kong Cultural Centre; the Town Halls of Sydney and Adelaide, Australia; Tchaikovsky Hall, Moscow; the Tonhalle, Zürich; the Duomo, Milano, Italy; the cathedrals in Berlin, Köln, München, Münster, Passau und Monaco, and the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, Germany; the Frauenkirche, Dresden; Igreja da Lapa, Porto, Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, Lissabon; Antwerp Cathedral, Belgium; Dvorak Hall, Prague; the Hallgrimskirkja, Reykjavik, Iceland; The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas; Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles; The Kimmel Center, Philadelphia; The Riverside Church, New York City; Rice University, Houston; Spivey Hall, Atlanta; and Severance Hall, Cleveland.
He has given master classes at Yale University; Westminster Choir College; the Cleveland Institute of Music, Bethel University (St. Paul, MN), Rice University (Houston, TX); the Hochschulen für Musik in Stuttgart, Trossingen and Bochum (Germany); and for chapters of the American Guild of Organists. He has also adjudicated for competitions at the Juilliard School and Northwestern University.

Stephen Tharp remains an important champion of new organ music, and continues to commission and premiere numerous compositions for the instrument. The first such piece was Jean Guillou’s symphonic poem Instants, Op. 57, which Tharp premiered at King’s College, Cambridge, England in February 1998. Works dedicated to him include George Baker’s ‘Danse Diabolique‘ (2016) and Variations on “Rouen” (2010); David Briggs’ ‘Toccata Labyrinth‘ (2006); Samuel Adler’s ‘Sonata‘ (2005); Eugenio Fagiani’s ‘Psalm 100‘ (2009) and ‘Stèle‘ (2003); Thierry Escaich’s ‘Trois Poèmes‘ (2002); Philip Moore’s ‘Sinfonietta‘ (2001); Anthony Newman’s ‘Tombeau d’Igor Stravinsky‘ (2000), ‘Toccata and Fuga Sinfonica on BACH‘ (1999) and the ‘Second Symphony‘ (1992); Martha Sullivan’s ‘Slingshot Shivaree for Organ and Percussion‘ (1999); and Morgan Simmons ‘Exercitatio Fantastica‘ (1997).
Himself a composer, Tharp was commissioned by Cologne Cathedral, Germany to compose for Easter Sunday, 2006 his ‘Easter Fanfares‘ for the inauguration of the organ’s new en chamade Tuba stops, as well ‘Disney’s Trumpets‘, composed in February 2011 for the organ at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, where it was premiered by the composer the following month.

In April 2008, Stephen Tharp was named the Official Organist for the NY visit of Pope Benedict XVI, playing for three major events attended by more than 60,000 people that were broadcast live worldwide. Mr. Tharp’s playing has also been heard on both English and Irish national television, on Radio Prague, orgelnieuws.nl in the Netherlands, and in the U. S. on American Public Media’s Pipedreams. In both 2005 and 2011, Pipedreams broadcast entire programs dedicated exclusively to his career, making him one of the few organists in the world so honored.

He is also an active chamber musician nationwide, having performed on organ, piano and harpsichord with artists such as Thomas Hampson, Itzhak Perlman, Jennifer Larmore, Rachel Barton Pine, the American Boychoir (James Litton, conductor), the St. Thomas Choir (John Scott, conductor, in Duruflé’s Requiem), and at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.

His commercial release The Complete Organ Works of Jeanne Demessieux on Aeolus, received the 2009 Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Germany’s premier critic’s prize for recordings, as well as the French 5 Diapason award. The release was celebrated in October 2010 with Mr. Tharp’s performance of the complete Demessieux works live over three concerts at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Stephen Tharp plays St. Bavo, Haarlem, The Netherlands on the JAV Recordings label was called “the most beautiful CD of 2009” by Resmusica in France.
Stephen Tharp earned his BA degree, magna cum laude, from Illinois College, Jacksonville, IL and his MM from Northwestern University, Chicago, where he studied with Rudolf Zuiderveld and Wolfgang Rübsam, respectively. He has also worked privately with Jean Guillou in Paris.

Michel BOURCIER

After completing his musical studies at the conservatories in Nantes and Angers, and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, Michel Bourcier has maintained a wide variety of activities ranging from interpretation, liturgical accompaniment and promotion of contemporary music to musical analysis and pedagogy.

He teaches organ at the Conservatoire de Nantes and, since 2007, is the organist of the Nantes Cathedral.

Michel Bourcier performs regularly as a soloist on France’s most famous organs and also particularly appreciates accompanying choirs and smaller vocal or instrumental groups. He has been invited as guest soloist by the Orchestre National des Pays de Loire, the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, the choir of Radio France, baroque ensemble Stradivaria and vocal ensemble Les Eléments of Toulouse, among others.

Though interested and active in all repertoires, his curiosity towards today’s music has led him to work with many contemporary composers. He has played or given first performances of works by Jacques Lenot, Christophe Looten and Valéry Aubertin, whose organ works he first recorded in collaboration with Peter Farago, Marie-Ange Leurant and Éric Le Brun, to critical acclaim. A long-standing association with Jean-Louis Florentz, (d. 2004), led to him giving first performances of Laudes and Standing on the sun (dedicated to him). A detailed study of this composer’s organ works by Michel Bourcier (Jean-Louis Florentz and the organ) is soon to be published. Internationally recognised as a major expert on this repertoire, he is regularly consulted by organists and conservatories for advice on its performance.

In addition to his career as an organist, Michel Bourcier is conductor and founding member of Ensemble Utopik, an instrumental collective created in 2004 to perform and promote twentieth and twenty-first century repertoire. With them, he has conducted works by Pierre Boulez, György Ligeti, Schoenberg, Gustav Mahler, Michaël Levinas, Philippe Leroux, Betsy Jolas, Alexandros Markéas, Edith Canat de Chizy, Martin Matalon, Kaija Saariaho, Tristan Murail, Philippe Hurel, Lionel Bord, Gilbert Amy, Pacal Dusapin, Gérard Pesson…

Jean-Baptiste MONNOT

Jean-Baptiste MONNOT is currently the titular organist of the Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Ouen Church in Rouen.

Born in 1984 in France, he began studying piano and organ at age 12. In 2002,  he won the 1st prize awarded unanimously by the jury of the 4th edition of Young Organist Competition presided over Marie-Claire Alain and he received his Bachelor in Music degree (Diplôme d’études musicales régionales).

In 2003 he was awarded the 1st Prize of perfection in organ. He gained entrance to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris in 2004, at age 20, and was awarded the 1st Prize of excellence in organ.

In May 2007 he received his Master’s Degree (Diplôme de Formation Supérieure) in organ with first class honours, in the class of Olivier Latry and Michel Bouvard before he improved his skills from Bernhard Haas in the Stuttgart Hochschule für Musik.

He participated several times between 2003 and 2005 in master classes given by Jean Guillou at the Zürich Tonhalle and at St. Eutasche Church (Paris) in 2007. From 2004 to 2014 he was Jean Guillou‘s assisstant at St. Eutasche Church.

As a soloist, he performs regularly with ensembles or orchestras all over the world. He also performed during festivals such as La Chaise-Dieu (France), Rouen (St. Ouen Church), Annecy, Paris, Berlin, Naumbourg (Germany), Piacenza (Italy), Rome, New-Orleans, Ostrava (Czech Republic), Vienna (Austria), Sydney, London, etc.

In 2010 he managed the creation of the incidental music for Macbeth by Jean Guillou in the framework of a Japanese tour (Kyoto concert Hall, Nagoya concert Hall) under the supervision of Masaru Sekine. Soon after, he was appointed as artiste-in-residence in St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans. In 2011 he gave a concert as a soloist with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2014, he gave a concert at the Österreichischer Rundfunk of Vienna (Austria), broadcast live.