Wolfgang Hörlin was born in 1955 in the spa town of Bad Mergentheim in South-western Germany.

He was educated in the historic cathedral city of Regensburg in Bavaria which was to become the focus of his lacer professional work as academic, teacher and performer of organ music.
Under the influence of Professors Weinberger and Lehrndorfer, Herr Hörlin’s main interest have centred on liturgical music for the offices of the Catholic Church and, also, on that most difficult of musical genres, improvisation.

His accomplishment in the latter field has been marked by successive highly-placed awards at two international competitions held in Germany during 1988 and 1989 and culminated, this year, in his winning the prestigious International Improvision Competition in the great ‘organ city’ of Haarlem.

http://www.wolfgang-hoerlin.de/hoerlin.htm

Emmanuel Hocdé was born in 1970 in Château-Gontier in Mayenne. After studying the organ at the Conservatoire National de Région of Saint Maur des Fossés with Gaston Litaize, obtaining a gold medal in 1990, he joined the class of Olivier Latry. He then continued advanced studies with Louis Robilliard at the Conservatoire National de Région in Lyon where he obtained a premier Prix, at the same time attending classes at the Sorbonne (Université-Paris-IV), from where he graduated with a bachelor of Musicology.

In 1992, Emmanuel Hocdé was accepted into the Conservatoire supérieur de Musique in Paris to study with Michel Chapuis and Olivier Latry, graduating with a Premier Prix in organ and a Premier Prix in bass continuo.

In 2001, he obtained a diploma in organ improvisation from the Conservatoire national supérieur de Musique in Lyon (studying with Loïc Mallié). In the same year, he won the “André Marchal Prize” (special mention from the jury), the “Audience Favourite” Prize and the “J. Englert Marchal Prize” (special prize for playing baroc music) at the international Organ Competition in Biarritz.

In 2002, Emmanuel Hocdé won the international Organ Competition in Chartres where he was awarded the Grand Prix for interpretation, the “Audience Favourite” Prize and the Jean-Sebastian Bach Prize. He has performed in France, Europe and the USA at the invitation of the most prestigious organ festivals. Several of his concerts have been broadcast, on notably Radio Classica (Spain), Radio Slovenia and Slovakia, and France Musique. Critics have hailed him as one of the most promising organiste of his generation : “capable of restituting and communicating ail the different facets of compositions with style and sensitivity…, his light intelligent articulation made the most difficult music seem simple and radiant”. ‘Greenwich Citizen-Connecticut’ U.S.A.)

Emmanuel Hocdé is resident organist at the church of Saint Éloi in Paris (12th district) and organ professor in several music schools.

Emmanuel HOCDE – Chartres 2012

http://emmanuel.hocde.free.fr/

Rie Hiroe Lang was born in 1965 in Tokyo.

At the age , 4, she took her first lessons in piano.

From 1984, she studied piano at the “Toho Gakuen College of Music Tokyo”. In 1998 she was awarded the degree “Bachelor of Music”. She then began to study organ in a master course at the “Stace University for Music and Art Tokyo”. In 1992, Rie Hiroe-Lang studied in Germany for 2 years at the “Hochschuleffir Musik und Theater Hannover” with Prof. Ulrich Brem-steller and received in 1994 the degree “Diplom-Musiker”.

In 1995 she finished her studies in Japan with the degree “Master of Music”.

Between 1995 and 1998 she studied with Prof. Ludger Lohmann at the “Staatliche Hochschule für Musik and Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart”.

Rie Hiroe-Lang won several important international organ competitions : Special Prize of St Albans and 3rd Prize of Wiesbaden in 1993. Diploma of honor as Finalist of “Printemps de Prague”, 3rd Prize of Nuremberg (Pachelbel Prize) and First Prize of Odense in 1994, 2nd Prize of Spire in 1995, Special Prize of the MDR of Leipzig, 2nd Prize of Musashino Tokyo in 1996 (no first prize that year) and Second Prize of Bruges in 1997. In 1998, she was awarded the Grand Prix d’Interprétation et le Prix du Public of the International Organ Competition in Chartres. Consequently, she was offered 75 concerts in Europe (France, Great-Britain, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Italy, Slovakia…) as well as in the USA, Canada, South America South Africa. She also plays regularly in Japan.

Walter Hillsman stood out on both sides of the Atlantic. At the age of seventeen he won a scholarship for four years of organ studies under the direction of Alexander McCURDY the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. A year later, he was appointed organist and choirmaster at the Old Christ Church Philadelphia Church, a position he held until the end of his studies in this city.

In 1964 he was voted “organ scholar” of New College, Oxford University. He was the first American to receive the award at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. For three years he studied as an assistant to David LUMSDEN in Oxford on a scholarship from the Keasbey Memorial Foundation, before continuing his studies for two years in Munich under the direction of Professor Karl RICHTER as a Fulbright Fellow. He continued his private study with Marie-Claire Alain and Jean LANGLAIS.

Walter Hillsman is the master of arts from the University of Oxford, Bachelor of Music (BMus.) From the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and “Fellow” graduate of the Royal College of Organists.

Walter Hillsman has given organ recitals in many famous churches (Westminster Abbey, the Abbey of St Albans, Notre-Dame de Paris, the Washington Cathedral, the Church of St. Thomas, Fifth Avenue, and Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York), in world-class universities (Columbia, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Oxford) and Music Festivals (including Orgeltage Düsseldorf International Music Festival and the North Wales). He has given recitals broadcast on Radio France and the BBC and recorded discs in England in Vista (VPS 1038) and Germany among Telduc (TST 66 21 311).

Currently he is professor of organ at Trinity College of Music, London, lecturer at the University of Reading and organist holder of the St. Margaret Church, Oxford.

James Higdon is the Dane and Polly Bales Professor of Organ and Director of the Division of Organ and Church Music at the University of Kansas. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in organ from St. Olaf College, Master of Music degree from Northwestern University, and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music. He has studied with Edmund Ladouceur, Robert Kendall, Karel Paukert, David Craighead, and Catharine Crozier. He has also studied in France with Marie-Claire Alain.

Higdon’s recordings include: Dupré : A Centennial Tribute (Pro Organo), recorded at St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Toronto, Canada ; Organ Music of France and Camille SAINT SAËNS (Arkay), both recorded on the 1879 Cavaillé-Coll organ at St.- François-de-Sales, Lyon, France ; and Jehan Alain : Complete Works for Organ (RBW). He is also featured on two recordings with the renowned Kansas City Chorale – Nativitas and Alleluia: An American Hymnal, recorded on the Nimbus label. 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 include recitals at Notre Dame Cathedral, La Madeleine and Saint-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris, St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna and concerts and master classes in Germany, Prague and Poland. Recent American recitals include appearances at four regional conventions of The American Guild of Organists. He has premières of three commissioned works for organ by American Composers :

Epistrophe : A Sonata in Four Movements for Organ – Samuel Adler, 1992 Three Temperaments – Stephen Paulus, 1996 Trelugue, Peccatas and Feuds – Music for a Reverberant Space – James Mobberley, 1997.

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 was the first University of Kansas professor from the arts to be recognized with this prestigious award. He has had six students win Fulbright Awards and two students awarded International Rotary Grants during his tenure at the University of Kansas.

James Higdon is also active as an adjudicator. He recently served on juries for numerous international organ playing competitions : Calgary North American Finals (Atlanta) ; International Organ Playing Competition (Erfurt, Germany) ; the Concours International d’orgue de la ville Biarritz : Prix André Marchal (Biarritz, France) ; the Concours internationaux de la Ville de Paris ; the Canadian International Organ Competition (Montréal) ; the Taraverdiev International Organ Competition (Moscow and Kaliningrad) and the Concours International de Chartres.

James HIGDON – Chartres 2010

Aude HEURTEMATTE successively studied with Gaston LITAIZE, Jean BOYER and Odile BAILLEUX.

She also studied history of music, esthetics and analysis at Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique of Paris.

Aude HEURTEMATTE is organ professor at the Conservatoire of Strasbourg. She is in addition, in Paris, titular organist of the historical organ of 17th and 18th centuries of the church Saint-Gervais, instrument of the Couperin family during nearly two centuries. She is also titular, in Paris, of the organ of the Billettes church.

She carries out a career of concert performer in France and abroad, animates various academies devoted in particular to the french baroque music and is member of jurys of international competitions.

Aude HEURTEMATTE – Chartres 2008

Gerhard Herwig is born in 1912 at Nikolai, Upper Silesia, Germany

The German choral conductor, Gerhard Herwig, studied church music in Breslau (top honors), and Universitätsmusiklehrer (University of Music Teachers) in Erlangen, and became full-time Kantor in Berlin.

In 1948 Gerhard Herwig was appointed Stadtkantor (City Cantor) in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. From 1951 to 1978 he was director of the Essener Bachchor; in 1958 he was appointed director of church music, retiring in 1978. Then, for many years he gave organ concerts at home and abroad.

Vera Hermanová studied organ in Brno and in Paris. She is a graduate from the Conservatoire and the “Janácek Academy of Performing Arts”, both in her native town. In Paris she completed her studies with the famous Gaston Litaize by winning “Premier Prix à l’Unanimité” at the “Conservatoire National de Saint-Maur”. She took part in master classes with prominent European organists (Gaston Litaize, Piet Kee, Ewald Kooiman, Guy Bovet, Lionel Rogg ). She took a postgraduate course in musicology at the Arts Faculty of the Masaryk University in Brno, submitting a dissertation on “Olivier Messiaen – Heir of French Organ Tradition” and receiving her doctorate in 1997.

During her university studies she won several organ competitions and began her career of a solo performer, which later led her to most European countries. She has appeared in a number of European culture centres including Prague, Paris, Vienna, Linz, Berlin, Münich, Hamburg, Dresden, Copenhagen, Oslo, Lublana, Utrecht, Haarlem and others. She has been invited to play at a number of major organ festivals at home and abroad (in Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Poland and in Italy).

Vera Hermanová’s wide repertoire includes music from late Renaissance, Bach and major romantic pieces to 20th century music, which is her favourite. Besides Czech organ music, the interest in which is only natural, her Paris schooling predestined her for special attention to French organ music of all periods.

Considerable success of her recitals soon opened her the doors of radio and gramophone studios: up to now she has made a number of radio recordings, and thirteen gramophone recordings of Czech and French organ music of the 18th to 20th centuries published by SUPRAPHON, BONTON, PANTON and BMG. Two CD recordings of Czech organ works of the 18th and 20th centuries won her the Czech Music Fund Prize.

Although Vera Hermanová focuses on solo recitals she also likes chamber performance, especially together with trumpeters, harpsichord players, singers and brass quintets.

http://hermanova.czweb.org/index-fr.html

Born December 30, 1934 in Paris, Jean-Claude Henry made the most of his musical studies at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris with Henri Challan for harmony, Noël Gallon for counterpoint and fugue , Rolande Falcinelli for organ and improvisation, Olivier Messiaen for analysis and Tony Aubin for composition. After winning several first Price : counterpoint in 1955, harmony, fugue, organ and improvisation the following year, philosophy of music in 1959, he won first Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1960 with a lyric cantata Spring, Milosz wrote a text. The following year he married Fanou Cotron, pianist and composer, the second Grand Prix de Rome in 1959, whom he has two children.

After a long military service he completed as deputy head of music, he decided not to stand in the Contest of Rome and became the deputy of Marcel Bitsch newly appointed professor of counterpoint and fugue at the Paris Conservatory. In October 1963 he was appointed professor of music theory at the conservatory and counterpoint, the art of movement, in October 1967. It will have a chance until his departure in September 2000 to teach the write a large number of outstanding musicians who through their donations, culture and the variety of their strong personalities will be for him a source of enrichment and musical incessant intellectual. The analyzes, more numerous each year, he created for his class, an ongoing exchange between teacher and taught, stimulate it in his teaching career, and support its constant attention to educational renewal.

Alongside his teaching activities, Jean-Claude Henry gives a number of organ concerts and wrote several pages to this instrument. Thus, at the request of Gaston Litaize for the magazine The liturgical organist, he composed in 1961 Four short pieces without pedal obliged: For a funeral service, for a time of penance, for a time of joy for all time; that of Norbert Dufourcq for the Organ and Liturgy review: Prelude to the Introit, Offertory, Elevation, Communion and Postlude for the Office of Sunday Sexagesima to be published successively in five collections between 1961 and 1967; and in 1966 commissioned by the Paris Conservatoire a “piece contest” for organ competition 1967: Chacone (Ed Leduc.). After a Movement saxhorn and piano (. 1972 ed Leduc), he wrote a new work for organ: Thallus (1973, ed Leduc.). The latter, a write most advanced aesthetic is both strongly rejected by some organists and valiantly defended by others, first and foremost we must mention Loïc Mallié who do not fear to include the composition in several program his concerts.

As an organist, winner of the International Organ Competition in Munich in 1959, Jean-Claude Henry since 1957 holder of St-Nicolas-St-Marc de Ville d’Avray, near Versailles, where he wantonly playing on an organ 20 stops over two manuals and pedal, built by Abbey and realigned by Peru shortly before his arrival. In 1970 he also succeeded Raffi Ourgandjian the organ church Mutin Saint-Pierre in Neuilly-sur-Seine and could thus be fully expressed. This important organ of 52 stops over 3 manuals and pedal, built a church which is the largest parish of Neuilly, was then used for many offices. In addition, exceptional enough to be out here, the clergy has always surrounded himself with valuable musicians: Henri Letocart, René Meugé, Xavier Darasse, Raffi Ourgandjian, Jean-Claude Henry, Loïc Mallié. From 1975, following the untimely death of his wife Fanou Cotron taken by family responsibilities (her two children, then aged 10 and 12) he asked Loic Mallié, organist, composer and talented improviser of become co-holder of the organ. However, it continued to give organ concerts and after a quiet period of some years, took up the pen. Among his works include those recently written : Benthos, for organ (Lemoine), Toccata for organ (Lemoine) Internal Routes for cello and piano (Billaudot), Prelude for Organ (Billaudot, Panoramas collection), Stances five brass (unpublished ) Iorti for violin, cello and piano (Notissimo / Leduc) for an order from the Paris Conservatoire for the bicentennial, cold reflection for oboe and piano (unpublished), Etiouse for solo percussion (unpublished), Breaths for violin, viola, cello , flute, clarinet / bass clarinet and piano (Ensemble command “Modern Times” Notissimo / Leduc), piano Traces (Lemoine, Ibanez collection), reed, bow, hammer, “a tale trio” for tenor / soprano, violin and piano (Notissimo / Leduc), Three Preludes… and a small organ canzone (The Sylph flute, Winter, Marimborg, Canzone), musical publications Jobert / Rubin, obscure Fountains for violin and piano (Musicare, Conservatory of Nimes not distributed) Six short studies for organ with or without pedal : 1) Seconds : 2) Sixths (both without pedals), 3) Third and quads, 4) Scherzetto, 5) mixed Chants 6) Perpetuum mobile (IMD Editions, Arpèges diffusion)…

Member of the Jury Grand Prix de Chartres 1982.

In 1996, Jean-Claude Henry remarried one of his former pupils, Rikako Watanabe, composer. The latter, after obtaining a Master of Arts in composition at the University of Kunitachi Music in Tokyo, followed parallel teaching senior conservatories in Lyon and Paris and obtained the “Higher Diploma in writing discipline” in Conservatory of Lyon and various first price than Paris. She is the author of several works for percussion ensemble, organ and various instrumental groups, and in April 2002 was appointed Professor of competition musical training at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.

Musician end ingenious teacher and talented organist, Jean-Claude Henry is also a warm man listening to others. The circumstances of life, and his modesty, may have prevented him from conquering fame, even if his work is of a high standard of charm and characteristic of this generation of musicians in the late twentieth century.

Denis Havard Mountain
www.musimem.com

(With his permission)

Noël Hazebroucq was born in Paris in 1979. After complete musical studies at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris-CNR, he obtains the conservatory’s first prizes in organ, musical theory, harmony, orchestration and counterpoint, as well as the gold medal for improvisation at the C. N. R. in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés.

He also holds the diplomas of the National Music School in Orléans and of the C. N. S. M. in Lyon. Besides, he won different prizes in the following competitions : 1rst prize of honour at UFAM (Paris), the Prize Marcel Dupré (Chartres), the Prize Boëlmann-Gigout (Strasbourg) and the André Marchal improvisation prize (Biarritz).

In 2004, he wins the “Grand Prix d’improvisation” of the City of Paris and he is also awarded the second prize ex-æquo and the Public Prize at the international organ competition “Grand Prix de Chartres”.

As a composer, Noël Hazebroucq is a member of the SACEM. Titular organist in protestant church “Temple des Batignolles” in Paris, he is currently a teacher at the international music conservatory in Paris 8.

Noël HAZEBROUCQ – Chartres 2004

http://nh-music.fr/nh/Menu.html