Mithra Van Eenhooge started studying music at the Conservatory of his hometown Bruges.

He also studied at the Academy for Music and Dance in Ghent.

He studied organ with Ignace Michiels at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent and obtained his masters degree with the highest distinction in 2008. Consequently he studied with Éric Lebrun in Paris whom he obtained the Prix de perfectionnement.

He participated at several masterclasses with O. Latry, L. Van Doeselaar, J. Laukvik, J-B. Robin and J-C. Zehnder.

In 2008 Van Eenhooge received both Prices at the organ festival in Kortrijk (Belgium)

Mithra Van Eenhooge is assistant-organist at the St. Saviours cathedral in Bruges and organist at the St. Katarina church. He plays concerts both as a soloist and as accompanist.

Mithra VAN EENHOOGE – Chartres 2012

Johannes Unger, born in 1976 in Schlema, East Germany, was marked in his early life by his musical parents. He received a complete musical training at the Special School for Music in Halle, which he then continued at the Academy for Music and Theatre “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” in Leipzig. He studied organ with Ullrich Böhme, organist of St Thomas Leipzig, and piano with Markus Tomas. He continued his studies in the solo class of Hans Fagius at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen until 2001. Furthermore he attended master classes conducted by Emanuel Ax, Christian Zacharias, Robert Levin and Ewald Kooiman.

Being the youngest participant, Johannes Unger won the First Prize in the renowned International Organ Competitions in Odense, Denmark, in 1998. In the Bach year 2000 he won the 12th International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig, along with the audience prize and numerous special prizes. In 2001 he won the First Prize in the 21st International Organ Festival St Albans interpretation competition.

He has performed in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia, Hungary, France, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.A. (represented by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists). He was invited to perform at famous festivals (Leipzig, Eisenach, Frankfurt, Chartres, Monaco, and Haarlem).

Johannes Unger is organist for the Thüringischer Akademischer Singkreis and accepts invitations from other excellent ensembles. Among these are the Dresdner Kammerchor, Dresdner Kreuzchor, Sächsisches Vocalensemble, and the Leipziger Universitätschor

Together with the pianist Christian Meinel he has dedicated himself to piano duets. First Prizes in the “Youth plays music” competitions, numerous recitals, and a CD production testify to this successful collaboration. His first solo CD, released in 2001, was recorded on the Silbermann organ in Rötha, near Leipzig.

Furthermore, Johannes Unger is leader of the Steering Committee for the rebuilding of the large organ in St Peter’s church in Leipzig. He supports the series “Organ-Point-Twelve” on the Jahn organ in St Peter’s. This organ was previously in the University Church and was saved just before the church was blown up in 1968.

2003-2009, Johannes Unger has been assistant organist at St Thomas church Leipzig. By July 2009 he is organist at St Mary’s of Lübeck.

http://www.johannesunger.de/vita.php

Thomas Trotter is one of Britain’s most widely admired musicians. In May 2002 he received the Royal Philharmonic Society’s prestigious Instrumentalist Award. The excellence of his musicianship has also long been recognized internationally in his musical partnerships. He performs as soloist with some of best conductors. He has performed recitals in Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna and at London’s Royal Festival Hall. He has given the opening recital on new or restored organs in many places and he is regulary asked to perform on major historic instruments. He appears at the festivals of Salzburg, Berlin, Vienna, Edimbourg and London’s BBC Proms. He performs with leading orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony orchestras.

Thomas Trotter’s career is also firmly founded on his relationship with the City of Birmingham in England. Here he was appointed City Organist in 1983 in succession to Sir George Thalben-Ball and he is now also Resident organist of the magnificent new Klais organ at Symphony Hall in the city where he gave the opening recital in october 2001. He is also Organist at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey in London and visiting Professor of Organ at the Royal College of Music also in London. Earlier in his career he was organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge and he later continued his studies with Marie-Claire Alain in Paris where he took the Prix de Virtuosité in her class. He won First Prize at the St Albans International Organ Competition in 1979 and made his debut in London’s Royal Festival Hall the following year.

Alongside his weekly recitals in Birmingham, Thomas Trotter regulary performs throughout the USA and Europe. He is also an active recording artist. During 2002 he returns to London’s Royal Festival Hall, gives two Messiaen recitals at the “Philharmonie” in Berlin, returns to France, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA and gives the opening recital on the new organ at the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapour.

http://www.patrickgarvey.com/artists/thomas-trotter.html

Born in 1955, Olivier Trachier joined CNSMD Paris after his graduate studies.

Winner classes of organ and music writing, he expanded his instrumental training with renowned organists before being rewarded in the tenth international competition of Bruges.

He holds the great organ of Saint-Gervais since 1989 and has performed in concerts, especially in European historical instruments. Named writing professor at the Conservatoire de Paris (1989) after having taught at the Conservatory of Reims, he created the class called Polyphony XV – XVII centuries, which develops an original teaching of early polyphony.

For its part, Musica practica, course at the Paris Conservatoire in 1998, allows him to showcase the practical aspects of the corresponding music theory (solmisation, terms, improvised counterpoint and writing, measurements and proportions, composition and rhetoric).

Strongly attracted by the Renaissance repertoire, Olivier Trachier published his research in various publishers (Durand, Minerva-CESR, Valentin Koerner, Fuzeau etc.) and focuses on the evolution of musical composition in the past centuries .

For the organ, he adapted various works of classical composers: Vivaldi concertos, JS Bach, two Fantasias for Orgelwalze and other works by Mozart (ed Combre).

David Titterington is the Artistic Director of the International Organ Festival at St Albans and one of the world’s leading concert organists. He made his debut at the Royal Festival Hall in 1986 launching a career that has since taken him to many of the great international festivals and concert halls including Herkulessaal in Munich, Schauspielhaus in Berlin, Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, Megaron in Athens, and the Musachino Concert Hall in Tokyo. He was a featured artist of the European Festivals Association’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 2002 performing works by Kurtag and Messiaen at the Festival of Festivals in Geneva.

Committed to contemporary music he has premiered a number of significant works, in particular Diana Burrell’s 1990 BBC Proms Commission Arched Forms with Bells, and Terce for organ & accordion at the Spitalfields Festival, Hans Werner Henze’s Symphony No.9 at the 2000 BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Ingo Metzmacher, Toccare Incandescent by Stephen Montague, commissioned by the South Bank and premiered at the Royal Festival Hall to mark the 50th anniversary of the building of the Hall’s organ, and Giles Swayne’s Fourteen Stations of the Cross commissioned for the 25th anniversary of the Cambridge Festival in King’s College Chapel. Other first performances include Lyell Cresswell’s The Blackness of Darkness (New Zealand Festival commission), Petr Eben’s Job (Harrogate Festival commission), and Peter Tiefenbach’s Opening Day (Guelph Festival commission). In 2001 he collaborated with Maurizio Kagel in the London performance of Rrrrrr, and with Jonathan Dove in a premiere performance of Niagara. He gave the New Zealand premiere of Olivier Messiaen’s Livre du Saint Sacrement and the Finnish premiere of Petr Eben’s Organ Concerto No 1 with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra,

In addition to CD’s of works by Olivier Messiaen, Petr Eben and Johann Ernst Eberlin, David Titterington has recorded more than thirty programmes for the BBC and innumerable for radio and television networks world-wide, including the complete works of César Franck from the Abbey of St Étienne, Caen.

David Titterington was Organ Scholar at Pembroke College, Oxford and continued his studies in Paris with Marie-Claire Alain and Susan Landale at the Conservatoire at Rueil-Malmaison, where he won a unanimous Premier Prix. In 1996 he was appointed Head of Organ Studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Since 1993 he has given annual master classes at the Dartington International Summer School and since 1997 he has been Visiting Professor of Organ at the Liszt Academy, Budapest.

He has served on many international juries including the Grand Prix de Chartres, Prix André Marchal, BBC’s Young Musician of the Year, the Grand Prix Bach de Lausanne Competition, Graz International Organ Competition, 1st International Organ Competition Basso Friuli, Italy, and in 2010 the International Organ Competitions in Dublin and Moscow. In 1992, he was Artistic Director and Chairman of the Jury of the European Organ Festival, and in 2002 Artistic Director of the festival ‘Splendour of the Spanish Baroque’. He has received several awards and honours, including Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists in 1999, an Honorary Doctorate from the Liszt Ferenc State University, Budapest in 2000, Honorary Membership of the Royal Academy of Music in 2008 and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Huddersfield in 2010.

Some recent engagements include Poulenc’s Organ Concerto conducted by Jan Latham Koenig at the Turin Opera House, the premiere of a new work by Pavel Novak for organ, soprano and trumpet at the Dartington International Summer School, a debut recital at Moscow’s International Performing Arts Centre, recitals as part of the South Bank’s Messiaen Festival Towards the Canyons and the Stars, Messiaen’s Livre du Saint Sacrement at the Brompton Oratory, and recitals at the Philharmonie, Luxembourg, in Waldkirch, Germany on the historic Walcher organ and a solo recital at the BBC Proms in 2009.

The current season includes recitals in Victoria Hall, Geneva, Tchaikovsky Hall, Moscow, the Winspear Center in Edmonton, Canada, Neresheim Abbey in Germany and at the Krakow Organ Festival.

http://www.ram.ac.uk/about-us/staff/david-titterington

Louis THIRY is a former pupil of André MARCHAL, one of the great instigators of the organ revival in France.

Louis THIRY was awarded the First Prize at the National Superior Conservatory of Music in Paris in the class of Rolande FALCINELLI. His activities are divided between teaching, concerts, radio broadcasts, and recordings in France and abroad.

He bas participated in numerous festivals : Lille, Besançon, Festival Estival in Paris, Festival du Marais, Festival d’Avignon, d’Haarlem, Festival 1982 in Moscou, Venise, etc…

His repertoire extends from the 13th to the 20th century and he is particularly interested in medieval music with its very rich characteristics. Jean-Sébastien BACH – whose ART OF THE FUGUE and WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER he bas recorded – intensely sollicits his spirit of research.

Louis THIRY also gladly performs music of contemporary 20th century composera. Among them he is particularly interested in Olivier MESSIAEN, whose music he helped to be made known in concerts throughout Europe.

Besides his activity as a soloist. Louis THIRY performs often with different singera and instrumentalists. He is titular organist of the historical Lefebvre organ (18th Century) in the Chapel of the University Hospital Center «Charles Nicolle» in Rouen.

Louis Thiry has made numerous recordings among which those dedicated to the composer Olivier Messiaen were awarded the Prize of the Président of the Republic and the «Shock» of the Monde de la Musique.

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

Born in Cologne, 18 December 1906, Josef Zimmermann holds at the Musikhochschule in his hometown.

Student of Hans Bachem, Dominique Heinrich Lemacher Johner and it is choirmaster and organist at the parish church in Esch, and later in Saint-Étienne in Cologne.

After 1933 Zimmermann was organist and choirmaster of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Apostles before being organ professor from 1945.
Expert in restoration of historic organs. Primary responsibility for an organ class, many students today have important functions in the musical life of the Church, both in Germany and abroad.

It deploys an intense concert activity recognized as a true connoisseur of the French organ music (Dupré, Widor, Vierne, Messiaen, Langlais…), he is also dedicated to many mistakenly forgotten works, Rheinberger, Karg-Elert, Sibelius and Glazunov… It creates almost all organ works of Hermann Schroeder especially the Prelude and Fugue “Christ lag in Todesbanden” which specially dedicated to him.

December 18, 1996, he was named an honorary member of the Hermann-Schroeder-Company.

Joseph Zimmermann died on 1 August 1998 in Cologne.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Zimmermann_(Organist)

Hector Zeoli began his musical studies in Rosario, his hometown, with professors Manuel Cuevas (piano), Ricardo Engelbrecht (harmony) and Franz Mülemkaft (organ).

At 18, he was appointed to the Cathedral of Rosario, giving recitals for LT8 Radio Littoral.
Fellow of the Foundation Santamaria, he traveled to Buenos Aires in 1944 and then to the United States in 1947 to continue his training. There, he studied conducting with Rudolf Thomas (Columbia University), winning a scholarship from the Julliard School of Music in New York. Finalist in the International Competition of Organists (Texas, 1949), and in 1954 graduated from the Julliard School of Music, he returned to his country where he was appointed by competition, organist and choir director of the National College of Buenos Aires.

Hector Zeoli is the coordinator of the International Organ Days organized by the Cultural Department of the University of Buenos Aires, and member of the Board of Directors of the Cultural Foundation Promusica.

Since 1958 he was organist of the Basilica of Santo Domingo, Buenos Aires participating in the selection of the new organ registers installed in 1964. In 1979, with the organ builder the National College of Buenos Aires, Ing. Merlassino, he planned the restoration of the great organ of that institution.

Hector Zeoli was the first Latin American guest organist at bi-annual meeting organized by the American Guild of Organist in Los Angeles in 1962, where he played premiered his Sonata for Organ.

His recordings stand a disc dedicated to the works of J. S. Bach, as well as tapes of his improvisations and his works of biblical inspiration (“La Ciudad del Manana”, “El Nacimiento de Jesus”, “Oratorio de Pascua” , etc…).

Hector Zeoli pursues an international concert career, making many tours in Latin American and European countries.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9ctor_Zeoli

Lynn Zeigler holds an organ performance degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where she was a student of David Boe and Fenner Douglass. Ms. Zeigler holds the Masters of Music degree from Northwestern University where she studied with Grigg Fountain. After two years of study with organist Lionel Rogg at the Conservatory of Music in Geneva, Switzerland, Ms. Zeigler was awarded the Premier Prix de Virtuosité, the highest performance degree given in Europe. Lynn Zeigler has attended master classes with several noted organists : Werner Jacob, Luigi Tagliavini, Flor Peeters, and Harald Vogel.

Lynn Zeigler has won several first prizes in European organ competitions and makes concert tours throughout Europe, including The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, and Norway. She has performed on three separate occasions in Honolulu and Maui, Hawaii. Lynn Zeigler has appeared on Eurovision (European television) and has made numerous recordings for Dutch, Swiss, Danish and Norwegian radios. She is heard on American radio and on Minnesota Public Radios’s well known “Pipedreams”. She gives concerts, workshops and master classes throughout the United States and Europe and server as an adjudicator for organ competitions.

Lynn Zeigler recorded eleven organ and harpsichord pieces for a music history textbook, The Development of Western Music, A History by K Marie Stolba. She has recorded for Raven Records, Organ Historical Society, organ music of various periods and styles on the 1987 organ of John Brombaugh at Iowa State University. She has also recorded the complete organ version of J. S. Bach’s Art of Fugue, a double compact disc and has recorded a compact disc of organ pieces from the twentieth century American composers.

As a Professor of Music at Iowa State University, Lynn Zeigler teaches organ, harpsichord and music theory. She plays continuo in Basically Baroque, a quartet with Baroque oboe, flute and gamba. She also plays continuo in The Lyremar Trio which includes Baroque flute and gamba. The Lyremar Trio has recorded sonatas of Marcello for CD. Lynn Zeigler organizes two guest organ recitals and a weekly organ recital series at Iowa State each year. She is also organist at the Collegiate Presbyterian Church in Ames.

Lynn Zeigler has devoted much of her research to writing a book on the organ and musicianship geared to informing the non-trained church organist.

She received the 1998 Liberal Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity from Iowa State University.

http://www.music.iastate.edu/faculty/zeigler

Chantal de Zeeuw is titular organist of Aix-en-Provence St-Sauveur Cathedral and conservatory. She is frequently invited in France and abroad to give recitals and to perform in orchestral concerts (Saint-Saens’ Third Symphony, Poulenc’s Concerto, Fauré’s Requiem….)

Chantal de Zeeuw won the French Record Academy’s grand prize in 1984 and 1985 for her recordings of the works of Franz Lizst and a series of works by French composera from “the Revolution to the Empire”. She has recently recorded Darius Milhaud’s Sacred Service as well as contemporary works.

She studied under Maurice Gay, Jean Langlais, Jean Costa, Daniel Roth and Louis Robilliard at the conservatories of Aix, Marseille, and Lyon, and at the Schola Cantorum in Paris. She has taken masterclasses with Marie-Claire Alain, Pierre Cochereau and Jean Guillou.