Born in Seoul, Korea, Ms. Shin-Young Lee began her musical studies on the piano at the age of four and on the organ at the age of seventeen. She received a Bachelor of Music degree from Yonsei University, Seoul, under the direction of Dr. Tong-Soon Kwak. In France, Ms. Lee continued her studies at the Schola Cantorum of Paris with Jean-Paul Imbert. She was awarded the first “Prix de Virtuosité” in 2002, and the first “Diplôme de concert à l’unanimité avec felicitations du jury” in 2003.

In September of the same year, Lee entered the organ class at the Paris Conservatoire National Superieur Musique (CNSMDP) and received the Diplôme de Formation Supérieure in 2007 with Michel Bouvard and Olivier Latry. She then attended the post-graduate class (“cycle de perfectionnement”) until June 2009.

Lee won the first prize at the Organ Competition of St. François of Lyon (2007) and she was laureate of the 2nd International Jordan International Organ Competition in Columbus, USA (2009). Since then, she travels on many countries on five continents, performing, giving masterclasses or judging competitions. She performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, Lathi Festival, Walt Disney hall of Los Angeles, Monaco Festival, Haarlem Festival, as well as the opening concert of the new organ at Radio France de Paris.

In addition to concerts and teaching, Lee has made her mark through recordings on the BNL label : Stravinsky (“The Rite of Spring”, duet with Olivier Latry) and “Transprovisations”, featuring the new organ of the Michaelskirche in Munich.

Shin-Young LEE – Chartres 2009

By her numerous recitals, lier tours abroad and her abundant recordings. Michelle Leclerc has become one of the most prominent international organists.

After having finished her studies with Jean Langlais, she received the prize virtuosity at the «Schola Cantorum de Paris». The same year she also won the Charles Tournemire Grand Prix for interpretation and improvisation by the «Association des Amis de l’Orgue de Paris».

Afterwards she went on to study improvisation with Pierre Cochereau.

In 1974 she was a finalist of the International Organ Compétition «Grand Prix de Chartres».

Michelle Leclerc was titular organist at the Cathédral of Sens and the Lutherienne Church des Billettes in Paris.

She gives performances in the most renowned places where the critics are unanimous in their view ofher transcendent virtuosity and personality, her «expressive playing» and her «inborn talent for registration». Apart from her engagement as a teacher at the Schola Cantorum of Pans, Michelle Leclerc devotes herself to the training of organiste at the Académie d’Orgue in Masevaux.

In 1991, she succeeded Yves Devernay as organ professor at the Valenciennes National Conservatory.

Michelle Leclerc died on 12 September 2006.

Born in 1962, Jean-Pierre Lecaudey begins the study of the piano very early. Favouring studies of organ, he improves in Xavier Darasse’s class in C.N.R. of Toulouse. In 1982 then 1983 are awarded to him in the unanimity of jury a gold medal, then a first price of improvement.

Since 1983, his organist’s career concert artist led it to occur in numerous festivals, in France in Europe, in North America and in Japan.

Since September, 2000 Jean-Pierre Lecaudey is professor of organ at The National Music School of “Grand Avignon”. He is regularly invited in the United States and in Canada to give of Master Classes and Recitals on French Music. He is also member of jurys for international competitions.

He is the holder of the Pascal Quoirin’s organ of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

Jean-Pierre LECAUDEY – Chartres 2008

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Lecaudey

A former student of Gaston Litaize, Éric LEBRUN completed his studies at the Conservatory of Paris. He graduated with the highest honors including a first prize in the organ class of Michel Chapuis.

He has worked with other professors such as Anne-Marie Barat, Daniel Roth, Olivier Latry and Michel Bouvard as well as with the pianists Bruno Rigutto and Pierre Duvauchelle, the orchestral conductor Gérard Devos and the musicologists Jean Maillard, Brigitte François-Sappey and Jean Saint-Arroman. With the latter he participated in the reconstitution of complete religious services of 17th century France.

Éric Lebrun has been an award winner and finalist in several international competitions (organ, composition, chamber music) and in 1990 was named titular organist of the Cavaillé-Coll instrument at the Parisian church Saint Antoine des Quinze-Vingts. There he recorded the complete organ works of Jehan Alain, Maurice Duruflé and César Franck as well as several broadcasts for France-Musique. He founded and has directed since 1991 the “Choeurs de Saint Antoine”. The repertory of this group includes major sacred choral works from the Middle Ages to the contemporary period.

In collaboration with Marie-Ange Leurent, Éric Lebrun has formed a popular organ duo for four hands. He also performs as a soloist with various orchestras and vocal groups (Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Orchestra National de Budapest, Ensemble Instrumental Jean-Walter Audoli, Choeur de Radio-France, Choeur Régional Vittoria d’Ile de France, Ensemble Vocal Michel Piquemal, Orchestre Symphonique de Aarhus, Denmark…). He has given the inaugural performance of many compositions for organ, some of them written especially for him (Valéry Aubertin, Jacques Castérède, Thierry Escaich, Kamilo Lendvay, Gaston Litaize…).

From music for solo violin to an oratorio Eric Lebrun has composed about fifty works including the cycle Mystères du Rosaire, Trois Poèmes Liturgiques (commissioned by the Sacred Music Festival of Sylvanès Abbey), Sonata Sacra for great organ (commissioned by the Comminges Festival) and Canticum Fratris Solis based on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi (inaugural performance by France-Musique).

After teaching at the Conservatory of Fontainebleau and at the Sorbonne and in addition to directing the National School of Music and Dance at Cachan, Éric Lebrun founded the Didactic class at the National Superior Conservatory of Music in Paris. He now is professor of organ at the Conservatory of Regional Musical Influence at Saint-Maur des Fossés and regularly gives master classes at music schools such as The Royal Academy of Music in London and the National Conservatories of Bologne, Piacenza (Italy) and Zwolle (Holland). He was founder of the Organ Academies of Nemours and Sarlat and spent several seasons as organ professor at the International Academy of Comminges. For sixteen consecutive years Eric Lebrun was artistic director of the Organ Academy of Issenheim which included about thirty of the great Alsatian organs. He then founded the Organ Academy of Bourron-Marlotte in the Fontainebleau area. He has Certificates of Aptitude for the profession of teaching organ, musical culture and for directorship.

In 2006 he wrote a biography of Dietrich Buxtehude (Edited by Bleu-Nuit). He then recorded (on 6 CDs) with Marie-Ange Leurent, that composer’s organ works (Bayard- Musique) which received the Grand Prix du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros.  He next recorded the organ works of Boëly (Choc du Monde de la Musique) which was accompanied by a biography of the composer written in collaboration with Brigitte François-Sappey. Éric Lebrun is also the founder and president of the Association Gaston Litaize and he and Marie-Ange Leurent recorded his complete organ works for Litaize’s one hundredth anniversary in 2009.

In 2010 his Vingt Mystères du Rosaire, opus 10 was published and his double album of Franz Liszt’s works was released. In 2011 he gave the inaugural concert of his Suite for organ, opus 18 at the Paris church of Saint Eustache. The year 2012 saw the publication of his monograph of César Franck (Edited by Bleu-Nuit).

His organ class at Saint-Maur joined the Superior Pole of Excellence 93 in June 2015. In December of that year he was named honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Music of Aarhus, Denmark. Currently he is recording with Marie-Ange Leurent the complete organ works of Johan Sebastian Bach on 20 CDs scheduled to be finished in 2020 (Monthabor Musique). In 2016 he published a new biography of Johan Sebastian Bach (edited by Bleu-Nuit).

Jon Laukvik was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1952.

Study of church music and organ playing in Oslo, further at the State School of Music (Musikhochschule) in Cologne with Prof Michael Schneider and in Paris with Marie-Claire Alain.

Study of harpsichord playing at the State School of Music in Cologne with Prof Hugo Ruf.

1977 First and Bach-Prize in the International Organ Competition at the International Organ Week (Ion) at Nuremberg. In the same year Prize winner in the International Organ Competition in connection with the Assembly of the German Protestant church in Berlin.

1980 named professer of organ at the State School of Music and Interpretative Art in Stuttgart.

1991 named professer of organ and historical keyboard instruments at the State School of Music and Interpretative Art in Stuttgart.

Concerts in several countries of Western and Eastern Europe as well as in Japon, Israel, and the USA.

Recordings for most of the German Broadcasting Companies. Records, also with own organ music.

Jury member of International organ competitions. Courses and seminars on historical performance practice in Western and Eastern Europe.

Author of an organ tutor Historical Practice in Organ Playing” (Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart 1996) and editor of e.g., G. F. Handel’s Organ Concertos Op. 7.

Compositions for organ solo, organ with other instruments, and for other vocal and instrumental groups.

At the time being he is working on a book on the performance of romantic organ music.

http://www.laukvik.de/index.html

Since 1985, Olivier Latry has been the tenured organist of the Great Organ of Notre-Dame de Paris, with Philippe Lefebvre and Jean-Pierre Leguay.

Olivier Latry is considered to be one of his generation’s most remarkable organists, not only in France, but internationally. After beginning his musical studies in Boulogne-sur-Mer, where he was born in 1962, he started taking organ classes with Gaston Litaize at the Conservatoire National de Région de Saint-Maur in 1978. At the Conservatoire de Paris, he studied writing with Jean-Claude Raynaud.

He began teaching organ starting in 1983 at Paris’s Institut Catholique then at the CNR de Reims, later succeeding his mentor Gaston LITAIZE at the CNR de Saint-Maur in 1990. In 1995, he was appointed organ professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris alongside Michel Bouvard.

Tenured organist on the great organ at the Meaux Cathedral from 1981 to 1985, at the age of 23, he won the competition to become tenured organist on Notre-Dame de Paris’s prestigious great organs, succeeding Pierre Cochereau. He still shares this activity with Philippe Lefebvre and Jean-Pierre Leguay.

Olivier Latry’s activity as a concert organist has taken him to more than fifty countries on five continents, most often to the United States. The American Guild of Organists invited him to their 1988 convention in Houston, making him one of the most popular French organists in North America. He has also made several recordings (Bach, Mozart, Schumann, Widor, Franck, Vierne, Duruflé and more) that have won him critical acclaim.

Olivier Latry does not want to become specialised in one specific repertory and serves as an ambassador for French music from the 17th to the 20th centuries as well as the art of improvisation. He is one of today’s most renowned improvisationalists, following in the exceptional French tradition of Charles Tournemire and Pierre Cochereau. He is especially fond of contemporary music, and has participated in creating works with Xavier Darasse, Claude Ballif, Thierry Pecout, Vincent Paulet, Thierry Escaich and Jean-Louis Florentz. He also worked extensively on the work of Olivier Messiaen, performing his entire works for organ in 2000 in a series of high-profile concerts in Paris, London and New York. These works were recorded at Notre-Dame de Paris for Deutsche Grammophon.

In recognition for his works in favour of the organ, he was awarded the Prix de la Fondation Cino et Simone Del Duca, which was officially given to him in November 2000 under the cupola of the Institut de France. In the United Kingdom, he was granted the North and Midlands School of Music’s Honorary Fellowship in 2006, and that of the Royal College of Organists in 2007.

http://www.concertorganists.com/artists/olivier-latry/

Born in Casablanca (Morocco), Marie-Louise Jacquet did her studies and music studies at the same time. She enters the Jean Langlais’ class in the Schola Cantorum of Paris. In 1969 she obtains the diploma of virtuosity for the organ and improvisation. At the same time she passes the master of musicology.

She started the teaching of organ as professor in Conservatoire of Marseille (1974-1987)

After her wedding with Jean Langlais in 1979, she becomes her attendance on the Cavaillé-Coll of Basilique Sainte-Clotilde in Paris. In 1985, she is nominated as organ and improvisation teacher at the Schola Cantorum and then in Conservatoire National de Région of Paris in 1988.

She publishes a lot of articles, and she wrote a thesis on Jean Langlais : Shadow and Light – Jean Langlais (1907-1991)

Marie-Louise Langlais accomplished several concerts in Europe and America. She has been member of jurys of international competition.

2007 is the centenary of Jean Langlais’ birthday. It’s a very important moment for her. She takes part in several festivals, conferences and meetings, which celebrate that event.

Marie-Louise JACQUET-LANGLAIS – Chartres 2007

http://ml-langlais.com/Accueil.html

The Canadian organist, harpsichordist, and teacher, Bernard Lagacé, began his musical studies with Conrad Letendre at the Séminaire de St-Hyacinthe where he was organist at the age of 14. In 1948 he replaced Raymond Daveluy, then in Europe, at the St-Jean-Baptiste Church, becoming regular organist there in 1950. He subsequently worked with Yvonne Hubert (piano) and Gabriel Cusson (harmony and counterpoint). He was awarded a grant in 1954 by the Quebec government and studied in Paris 1954-1955 with André Marchal (organ). In 1956 he worked in Vienna under Anton Heiller, also learning the harpsichord from Isolde Ahlgrimm, Eta Harich-Schneider, and Ruggero Gerlin.

Returning in 1957 to Montreal, Bernard Lagacé taught from 1957 to 1978 at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec (CMM) and was appointed to the staff of Concordia University in 1978. He taught during the summers at the Canadian Amateur Musicians (CAMMAC) Music Centre, at the Choate Music Seminars in Wallingford, Connecticut, at the JMC Orford Art Centre, at the Académie d’été de St-Hubert in Belgium, and at the Académie d’orgue de St-Dié in France. In addition to his wife, Mireille Lagacé, and daughter Geneviève, his many pupils included Hélène Dugal, Dom André Laberge, Lucien and Réjean Poirier, and Wilhelmina Tiemersma. He was a founding member of the group Ars Organi and was active in the revival of the classical organ in North America. He served on the juries of international organ competitions in England, Belgium, France, Ireland, and Canada. Lagacé became known internationally as an organ recitalist. He performed many times in Canada (notably on the CBC), the USA, and Europe, including at important festivals. He became organist at the Sanctuaire Marie-Reine-des-Cœurs in Montreal in 1966.

Although he has played most of the important works of the organ repertoire, Bernard Lagacé is considered a specialist of Baroque music, and of Bach in particular. He performed the complete organ works of Bach on two occasions at the Immaculée-Conception Church in Montreal 1975-1977, 1987-1979. Following one of these recitals, Carol Bergeron commented that ‘Bernard Lagacé delivers a clear, sensitive and intelligent discourse. This music speaks to us and one feels that the performer is at one with the music‘ (Montreal Le Devoir, October 1987). In the same church, he performed Dietrich Buxtehude’s complete organ works in six recitals 1978-1979 with his wife.

In 1978 Bernard Lagacé was awarded the Prix Denise-Pelletier by the Quebec government, and in 1989 the Prix de musique Calixa-Lavallée. He was named Member of the Order of Canada in 1985.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lagac%C3%A9

Jean Langlais was born on february 15, 1907, in La Fontenelle (Ille-et-Vilaine, Britanny), a small village near by the Mont-Saint-Michel.

Blind from the age of two, he studied in Paris at the National Institute for the Young Blind with, great teachers as, among other, Albert Mahaut, a former pupil of Cesar Franck, and the blind organist André Marchal.

At the National Conservatory of Music in Paris, he obtained a First Prize in organ in Marcel Dupré’s class of 1930 and a Composition Prize in Paul Dukas class of 1934. He also studied improvisation with Charles Tournemire, receiving in 1931 the “Grand Prix d’Exécution et Improvisation des Amis de l’Orgue”.

Professor for forty years at the National Institute for the Young Blind, he also taught at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, where between 1961 and 1976 he influenced both french and foreign students. His reputation as pedagogue, improviser and concert artist drew pupils and audiences of many nationalities, especially from the USA where he gave 300 recitals and countless master classes.

In 1945 he became the successor to Cesar Franck and Charles Tournemire at the prestigious organ tribune of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris. He left that position en 1987 at the age of 80, having been titular for 42 years.

A prolific composer, his catalog of works comprises 254 opus numbers, including vocal and instrumental sacred music (with 13 Masses, among them the famous Missa Salve Regina or the Messe Solennelle and the Missa in Simplicitate very often performed in concert), secular music (melodies, concertos) and numerous organ pages, some of which being already considered twentieth-century classics.

Jean Langlais died in Paris, on May 8, 1991, at the age of 84.

http://www.jeanlanglais.com/

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”.

http://www.susanlandale.com/fr/