Jean-Claude Raynaud was born June 30, 1937 in Mazamet (Tarn).

He continued his studies at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris where he won First Prize for harmony, counterpoint, fugue, piano accompaniment, organ.

Vocal coach at the Opera from 1965 to 1972, he was then appointed professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris where he teaches harmony.

Jean-Claude Raynaud is also organist titular at the Reformed Church of the Annunciation in Paris.

Discography :
Anthology of French organ music (VOX SVBX 5312)
Organ works of Olivier Messiaen (CBS 34-61250).
Works for brass and organ (with Brass quintet of the Orchestre de Paris) (Decca 7283)

Timothy Ravalde is the Assistant Organist of Chichester Cathedral and Musical Director of Fernhurst Choral Society. At Chichester Cathedral he is responsible for accompanying the daily choral services and assisting with the training of the choir.

He was educated at the Nelson Thomlinson School – Wigton, during which time he became Organ Scholar of Scholar of Carlisle Cathedral and a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. He then spent a year as Organ Scholar of Salisbury Cathedral.

He graduated from Cambridge University in 2010. As Organ Scholar of St John’s College he accompanied the choir for numerous tours, the famous annual Advent broadcasts and three critically acclaimed CD recordings with Chandos, as well as the daily chapel services. He also acted as Musical Director of the St John’s Singers, the College’s mixed voice choir and won the 2009 Brian Runnett Prize for organ playing.

Thimothy RAVALDE – Chartres 2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Ravalde

Born in Romania, Valentin Radu began his music studies at age four. At age six he made his first concert debut. In 1973, at 16, he won the prestigious Rome Piano Competition, and in 1979 – the Saarbrucken Organ Competition. In 1980, he won the silver medal (gold was not awarded) at the Bach International Competition in Leipzig.

Maestro Radu holds Doctoral and Masters degrees from the Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Bucharest Academy of Music. In 1976, he founded and conducted Juvenes Musici, a chamber orchestra under the auspices of the Bucharest Philharmonic. In 1980 he founded “The Juilliard Bach Players” chamber orchestra and initiated the “Bach at Juilliard” concert series at New York’s Lincoln Center.

In 1984 Valentin Radu was invited to inaugurate and later (in 1985) make the first and only LP solo recording on the newly re-built organ of the Imperial Chapel of Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna. The original instrument was built in 1721, on which Mozart himself performed during his 12 years as Vienna’s Court Musician.

In addition to being a classical music scholar and artist, Valentin Radu is equally accomplished in jazz performance as a conductor and a solo performer. In December 1998, he conducted the 97-member Bucharest Philharmonic in a Gershwin Centennial Gala concert, featuring the Rhapsody in Blue (Dan Grigore, soloist), An American in Paris, and Porgy and Bess. In November of 1999, Radu conducted the Arad Phiharmonic in a centennial concert featuring works by Duke Ellington and George Gershwin. Since May 2000, Maestro Radu has conducted extraordinary jazz concerts in Bucharest, with his “Sound” jazz group, featuring singer Teodora Enache and Romanian jazz legend Johny Raducanu.

In May 1999, Radu participated in the historic visit to Romania of Pope John Paul II. In September 2004, he was invited to be the sole performer at a special U.N. gala in New York honoring the President of Romania.

In December 1997, Radu was awarded the Golden Apple by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. In February 1999, the Romanian Music Critics’ Association named him “1998 Musician of the Year”. In April of 2003, Radu was bestowed the title of Honorary Citizen of the City of Bucharest by the mayor of his native town who is presently Romania’s President.

On December 20, 2005, Valentin Radu received the highest civil award of Romania : The Grand Officer of the Order of Cultural Merit (Romanian equivalent of The French Legion of Honor or British Knighthood), in recognition of his life achievement in the arts and his efforts as “Cultural Ambassador” of Romania. Radu became the seventh and youngest recipient of this most prestigious award in the history of Romania.

Valentin Radu, Founder, Artistic Director and Conductor of the Ama Deus Ensemble and Vox Renaissance Consort, has led numerous orchestras and vocal ensembles in Europe and the U.S., including the Hungarian National Philharmonic, Bucharest, Arad, Oradea Philharmonics, the Budapest Chamber Orchestra and the Romania National Radio Orchestra. In 1996 he conducted the Bucharest Philharmonic in Handel’s Messiah, and in 1997 led the Romanian National Radio Orchestra in Handel’s Acis and Galatea (both English language premieres).

He has conducted Vox Ama Deus in various programs ranging from motets and madrigals to authentically staged Renaissance operas performed on original instruments. Since 1997, he conducts Ama Deus Ensemble and Maestro Dan Grigore, a legendary Romanian pianist, in their annual Viennese Gala concerts in Philadelphia. He also conducted Ama Deus Ensemble in its yearly Good Friday performances at Cathedral Basilica of SS Peter and Paul in Philadelphia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Radu

Born in 1988 in the region of Nantes, Pierre QUEVAL is a graduate of the Conservatories of Nantes and Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, where he studied organ and improvisation with Michel Bourcier, Éric Lebrun, and Pierre Pincemaille.

He continued his studies in Master cycle at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP), he is in both the organ class of Michel Bouvard and Olivier Latry and the improvisation class of Thierry Escaich and Philippe Lefebvre. In 2013, he received both his Bachelors degree in organ-interprétation (mention très bien) and his diploma in counterpoint, which he studied in the class of Pierre Pincemaille.

Organiste Titulaire of the Gloton and Debierre organs of Saint-Clair (since 2006) and Sainte-Anne (since 2011) in Nantes, and assistant organist of the historical Debierre organ at Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Port in Nantes (since 2007), Pierre Queval performs recitals all across France. He performs regularly in Paris (at churches including La Trinité, Saint-Sulpice, and Saint-Séverin) and has been invited to perform at many renowned festivals, including “Radio France Montpellier/ Languedoc-Roussillon”, “Festival de la Chaise-Dieu”, “Les Soirées Estivales” at the Cathedral of Chartres, the Festival of the Abbey of Royaumont, “Le Festival de Musique Sacrée de la Cathédrale de Saint-Malo, “Le Son des Orgues” at the cathedral of Orléans, the festival “Musique en Côte Basque,” and “Musique Sacrée à la Cathédrale de Nantes”.

As an accompanist, Pierre Queval plays with several different vocal ensembles (Chœur Aedes, Chœur et Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Schola Cantorum de Nantes, Chœur “Éclats de Voix”…) as well as with many différent vocal and instrument soloists. Together with singer Ellen Giacone, he is currently preparing a CD recording devoted to sacred music of the 19^th and 20^thcenturies. In this spirit of chamber music, Pierre Queval has also recently founded a trio with flautist Charlotte Berthomé and violinist Mathilde Gandar.

Pierre QUEVAL – Chartres 2010

Born in 1944 in Bern.

Studied music at the Conservatoire de Lausanne.
Training in Paris with Marie-Claire Alain and Gaston Litaize.
Studies in Paris (in writing music License).
Studies at the Basel Music Academy ; soloist diploma.
Follows Masterclass Marie-Claire Alain, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Anton Heiller, Gustav Leonhardt.

Winner of various competitions (Zurich, Lausanne, Bologna, Paris, St. Albans)

Since 1973, Jean-Marc Pulfer was organist at St Matthew Lucerne, lecturer at the conservatories of Bern and Lucerne and the Municipal School of Lucerne.
Concerts, radio recordings and recorded TV worldwide.
Disc recordings for Erato and RCA Paris (including Maurice André and JF Paillard Chamber Orchestra).

Born January 9, 1910 in Bastia (Corsica), daughter of General Henry Roget, Henriette Roget made all his musical studies at the Paris Conservatory, where she entered at the age of 9 years. She obtained in record time 6 first prizes between 1926 and 1930 in the classes of Isidore Philipp, Jean and Noël Gallon, Estyle, Maurice Emmanuel and Marcel Dupré : piano, harmony, music history, piano accompaniment, counterpoint, fugue , organ. She is also a student of Charles Tournemire she sometimes makes up for the organ of Sainte-Clotilde church. First Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1933, she was appointed the following year organist of the Oratory of the Louvre and the Great Synagogue of Paris. It will remain in the galleries until 1979 and 1952 respectively also Committed singing head of the Paris Opera, conducts parallel a brilliant pianist at Radio since 1935, where she remained until 1975.

Organist, vocal coach, pianist, Henriette Roget became Mrs. Ramon Puig-Vinals was more renown educator who taught coaching at the Paris Conservatoire from 1957. She even trained several generations of pianists in Japan where she had left teaching in 1979.

As a soloist, Henriette Puig-Roget is claimed by larger formations, including the Company’s Concerts du Conservatoire, the Straram Concerts, Concerts Colonne, the Chicken Concerts, the Siohan Concerts, the Orchestre National de l’ORTF Concerts and Lisbon… From the fifties it recorded on discs, Pathé and Columbia, organ with Louis Martini and André Cluytens, Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s works (Messe to 6 vote, the symphony is Assumpta Maria and the De Profundis), Nicolas Bernier (Contitebor tibi dominates), Michel-Richard Delalande (De Profundis), Jean-Baptiste Lully (Dies Irae), Camille Saint-Saëns (Symphony No. 3 in C minor, op. 78) and piano with Georges Tzipine : First Suite Cuba for eight wind instruments and piano, Alejandro Garcia Caturla and Ritmica 1, for wind quintet and piano, Amadeo Roldan.

His work is varied and covers piano pieces for orchestra, chamber music, vocal and religious. Of course the organ is well represented including a funeral procession (Durand, 1939) of para la semana santa Deploracion a Toccata and severa Triathlon which served contest piece for the Conservatory in 1977.

Defending Indy, Vierne, Pierné or Messiaen, she created the Preludes in 1930, she was an ambassador of French music and his death arrived November 24, 1992 in Paris VII gives all those who knew the memory of a great lady of the organ dedicated to his students.

Denis Havard de la Montagne
www.musimem.com
(With his permission)

Member of the Jury Grand Prix de Chartres 1984.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henriette_Puig-Roget

After his first organ lessons with Jean-Albert Villard, Guillaume Prieur continues his training with Dominique Ferran at the Regional Academy of Music in Poitiers.

He obtains the Diploma of Musical Studies in 2006 in the class of Patrick Delabre of the National Music School in Chartres, then in 2008, the postgraduate diploma at the Regional Academy of music in Rouen, under the direction of François Ménissier.

In parallel to his professional organist training, he studies harpsichord and basso continuo with Irène Assayag.

Guillaume Prieur is also holding the diploma of musicology of Poitiers university, and he, graduated in composition at the National Academy of Music in Paris, where he also obtained prizes in harmony (Yves Henry), counterpoint (Pierre Pincemaille) and polyphony of the Renaissance period (Olivier Trachier).

Since Septembre 2008, Guillaume Prieur is pursuing his organ studies at the National Academy of Music in Lyon, with François Espinasse and Liesbeth Schlumberger.

Guillaume PRIEUR – Chartres 2009

Henri Pourtau, Director of Music at Notre Dame de Bon Voyage Church in Cannes, France.

Pourtau has an active career as a concert organist, participating in numerous international festivals and appearing as soloist with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Monte-Carlo, Philharmonic Orchestra of Nice, and the Instrument Ensemble of Grenoble. He often gives master classes on the performance of French organ music and has performed for radio and television broadcasts, including Poulenc’s Organ Concerto with the Virtuosi of France for “Musiques au Cœur” by Ève Ruggieri.

Pourtau is founder and Artistic Director of the Friends of the Organ of Cannes and created the organ series, Cycle d’Orgue International de Cannes.

PETER PLANYAVSKY was born in Vienna in 1947 and became a student of Anton Heiller at the university for Music and Drama when he was 12. He graduated with the Master‘s Diploma in Organ (1966) and the Diploma in Church Music (1967). He then worked for one year in the workshop of a major Austrian organ builder, and for another year he served as Abbey Organist at Schlägl, Austria.

In 1969, he was appointed Cathedral Organist at St, Stephan‘s Cathedral, Vienna. From 1983 until 1990, Planyavsky held the position of Music director at that church, being responsible for choral and organ programs which in Austria are traditionally seperate jobs. In 2004, Planyavsky decided to terminate his affiliation with the Cathedral.

Since 1980, Planyavsky has also been Professor for Organ and Improvisation at the University for Music and Drama in Vienna, with the additional function as Head of the Church Music department from 1996 to 2003.

Peter Planyavsky also undertakes a full schedule as a recitalist, coach in workshops and masterclasses and as a member of juries. He has toured North America, Japan, Australia, South Africa and most European countries ; and he has recorded a small stack of CDs and records.

Planyavsky has won several prizes and awards, the latest addition being the Federal Austrian Price for Music, awarded to him for his collected compositions. Planyavsky has composed extensively for choir, organ and orchestra, with a main emphasis on liturgical works.

As a conductor, Peter Planyavsky has peformed the great works of sacred music such as Bach‘s Mass in b minor, the Duruflè Requiem and the great Haydn masses. He is putting more emphasis now on concertos for organ and orchestra (Heiller, Guilmant, Jongen, Rheinberger, Saint-Saens and others), having conducted several premier performances in Austria like concertos by Horatio Parker, Jean Guillou, Jean Langlais, Howard Hanson and Leo Sowerby.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Planyavsky

Born July 21, 1936 in Normandy, Étrépagny (Eure), Michel Pinte discovers the organ in the church of his village at the age of 10 years already takes keyboards. But it was during his secondary studies in the Join-Lambert College of Rouen, he is really passionate about this instrument in 1948, at age 12, begins to make up for the organ in the chapel his first teacher, Jules Lambert, also choir organist of the cathedral. He accompanies works sung by the mastery of college, mainly pages of Jules Haelling, former choirmaster of the cathedral of Rouen. Admitted to the Conservatory of that city, he continued his musical training with Marcel Lanquetuit which will have a decisive role in his church musician vocation. In 1956, he left Rouen and after a short stay in education, it is called up and sent to Algeria. The organist of St. Philip’s Cathedral Algiers is vacant and, although military, he was appointed to the great organ Merklin and Kuhn (25 stops). It will be the last titular of the instrument before decolonization.

Back in Paris after the end of the war in Algeria (July 1962), Michel Pinte resumed his musical studies with Irene Baume-Psichari (piano), Yves Margat (writing), a former student of Gabriel Fauré, and Henri Pumpkin (Gregorian chant), choirmaster of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre and professor at the Gregorian Institute. At the Schola Cantorum, it also follows organ classes of Jean Langlais and in 1964 he obtained his degree in performance virtuosity and improvisation (jury chaired by André Marchal). At that time, in 1963 he was the deputy of Jeanne Baud-Cayron at the organ in the chapel of the Sacred Heart of the City University (Boulevard Jourdan), and from 1963 to 1965 the deputy of Raphael Tambyeff at Notre Dame de Grâce-of-Passy (street of the Annunciation). After two years at the organ in the choir of St. Louis Cathedral in Versailles, where he succeeded in 1964 to Geneviève Lesecq, he becomes the following year alternate of Pierre Delpit, choir organist at St. Augustin’s Church in Paris. In 1968, at the start of it to take the organ of Our Lady of the Rosary, he naturally follows it and is tenured. Ten years later (1979), he was appointed assistant of Suzanne Chaisemartin (1868 Barker / Cavaillé-Coll-Mutin, 3 manuals and pedals, 53 games) of the same church, and in 1990 co-titular.

The relatively important choir organ Cavaillé-Coll-Mutin (1899) of St. Augustin, that Michel Pinte plays for three decades, enabling it to “play most of the directory that it is available, at least according to criteria defined by Vierne in the preface of his fantasies Parts (“orgue moyen de deux claviers”) and the person wrote us himself in 1988, adding these few details : “the one who is at my disposal has 32 records 2 keyboards and adding six adjustable combinations gives it a comfort and considerable autonomy for casual and common masses ; redone by Gonzalez there are more than 10 years [1973], reviewed by Dargassies there is little time, it is entirely satisfactory. “At his retirement in June 1997, his position was abolished and its functions performed by the two new co-owners of the great organ, Didier Marty and Christophe Martin-Maeder appointed (September 1997) after his departure and that of Suzanne Chaisemartin (August 1997), also part of a retreat.

His virtuosity degree and upgrading courses followed later (1974) with Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier, Marie-Louise Girod and finally Suzanne Chaisemartin especially for improvisation, allowing Michel Pint build a career of concert organist “for his personal work and pleasure”, along with its liturgical organist at St. Augustin. Thus he gives concerts in the provinces, particularly in Marseille, Angoulême, Reims, Rouen, Antibes, Autun … but, judging himself as “the musical career especially being in France fully saturated or difficult,” it is abroad that most often occurs mainly in the US : New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston, Detroit, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Rochester, Salt Lake City… Cultivating preferably a romantic repertoire, symphonic and modern, without neglecting the essential pages of the classical repertoire, he knows skillfully concluded his recitals by improvisation always get a great success : in 1986, in Saint-Maclou of Rouen, “on a topic given by Pierre Labric Michel Pinte performs improvisational style of an open, bright, a kind of Prokofiev for “Chevauchée Fantastique” as a war of the stars in the maelstrom of the tundra… Some incredible images, in-depth show “(RB). A year earlier at a concert on July 3 at the organ of the National City Christian Church in Washington DC, H. Stein-Schneider reports in the newspaper France America : “improvisation on a theme of Duruflé -whose very recent death was announced during a brief Introduction- continued this rapid pulsation and the brilliance of Joan Demessieux [Te Deum], with the addition, poetic and quieter than the previous modes fireworks. Imagination creative Pinte, still under the influence of the great virtuoso, carried the audience to a spiritual joy, perfectly appropriate for a sanctuary filled with the sounds of the royal instrument of the highest qualityé. The following year, performing again in this city, but this time at St John’s Church, the Church of the Presidents, the same journalist wrote “Michel Pinte ended the recital with variations on a theme, which was in this case America the beautiful tribute to these Americans. Boasting a little at the theme in a five-part invention, Michel Pinte we revealed the power in a dazzling final”. And the daily The News of 11 August 1987 to write, in the account of his recital at the castle of Lessay (Côtes d’Or) on an Allen three-manual organ pedals and radiant “evening Stud : the final improvisation on a theme given by Mr. Gérard de la Hausse. Given the personality of the director of Mauritius Music School, it was expected to Salve Regina. It’s Cadet Roussel who left ! […] It was the beginning of a beautiful riot of creativity and technique. The beginning showed some of the influence of Paul Dukas Sorcerer’s Apprentice who was the master of Jean Langlais, himself a great orchestrator, with which Michel Pinte worked at the Schola Cantorum. This could explain it… Work lace around the central theme, widespread use of the full range of games, improvisation went crescendo of difficulty and the volume up become something huge and grandiose in the sublime. The witness of perfect ease and happiness of an artist accumulating pleasure technical difficulties and harmonic subtleties with mastery… necessarily evil ! Supreme relaxation of an artist who ends his performance by applauding the organ : touch of humor which Pint never departed. Indicative of a bias for freedom that ignores school quarrels (choice of the organ, touch, etc …) Pinte unethical ? May be ! To our delight to all” (Corinne Dauron).

In 1997, Michel Pinte settles in Spain, in Marbella (Malaga) and although retired continues its concert organist career. If the USA, Germany, Italy and Malta welcome him for a few concerts, as well as France (July 22, 2003 : tribute to Eugene Gigout at the Cathedral of Bourges, October 14, 2006 : 10th Festival Toulouse the Organs, works Bach at the St Sernin Basilica, October 15, 2006 : St-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet in Paris…), it is mainly in Spain we see it happen, especially in 1999 at the International Organ Week Granada, the following year at the Madrid in 2004 at the Festival of Leon (the Baneza) in 2005 at the Cathedral of Malaga and the year after that of Barcelona. In 2007, he played at the Palace of Music Valencia, the Basilica of San Juan de Dios de Granada, the Cathedral and the Church of El Salvador in the same city, as well as Latvia’s Cathedral Riga. In 2008 he gave a concert on February 29 in Marbella (Iglesia de la Encarnacion) with works by Boëly (Fantasy and Fugue in E-flat), JL Krebs (Trio on choral “Mein Gott ich das Herze bring-dir”), G. Aries (Toccata 1912), Flor Peeters (Choral trio “How lovely shines the morning star”), Guilmant (Sonata No. 3 in C minor, op. 56), Widor (Pastoral Symphony 2nd, op. 13, No. 2), AG Ritter (Sonata No. 3 in A minor, op. 24) and in the end, an improvisation. Its ultimate recital was held on March 18 in Santa Maria Cathedral of Caceres with this program : Prelude No. 2 in G minor Handel Trio BWV 585 and Fugue in G minor BWV 542 by J. S. Bach, Praeludium 20th Sonata, op . 196 J. Rheinberger, Attende Domine 3 (12 Chorales Preludes, Op. 8) Jeanne Demessieux, Toccata 1912 G. Aries, Sonata No. 3, Op. 56, Guilmant, Final of the 6th Symphony, op. 42, Widor and an improvisation on a Marian theme. Since 2005, he accompanied the Mass every Saturday evening on a digital organ Johannus 3 keyboards, the Nuestra del Carmen Church of Estepona, which had led to his being named “honorary organist” by the pastor of the parish.

Vermeil Medal of the City of Paris, Silver Medal of Merit Diocesan Michel Pinte died in his seventy-third year and was buried October 28, 2008 in the small cemetery of Doudeauville-en-Vexin (Eure) located not far from Étrépagny.

Denis Havard de la Montagne
www.musimem.com
(With his permission)