Born in Vannes in 1959, Michel Jezo studied organ there and then at the National Regional Conservatory in Nantes where he obtained a First Prize in Organ in 1982 in the class of Micheline Lagache.
Pursuing his studies with Jean Boyer at the National Regional Conservatory in Lille, he obtained in 1986 the diploma of improvement.
Co-titular organist of the great organ of Vannes Cathedral since 1984, he was in 1986 named assistant organist at the Church of St. Pierre de Chaillot in Paris.
Marie-Thérèse Jehan, after piano and organ studies, became at age 13 organist of the parish of Sainte Anne Saint Nazaire.
Student of the organist and composer Felix MOREAU, Great Organ of the holder of the Nantes Cathedral and disciple of Maurice Duruflé. Holder prices Roger Ducasse and that of Graven contest, she studied musical composition in the class of Paulette LADMIRAULT then with Mr and Mrs LANTIER in Paris. She works improvisation with Pierre COCHEREAU. She returned at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris in the organ class FALCINELLI Rolande, where she won first prize.
He is credited with the price of Vocation (promotion Marcel Pagnol).
Holder of the certificate of competence, she became professor of the organ class CRD Saint Nazaire. First organist at St. Clement of Nantes, it is then called Great Organ of the holder of the Nantes Cathedral at Easter 2002 by Monsignor SOUBRIER. She became accompanist of the regional choral workshop Loire Valley, led by Jeno REHAK, director of the CNR of Nantes.
She was invited to give recitals in France, England, Holland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy. Soloist at Radio France, she is the founder President of the Hymnal association. She is promoted Knight of Arts and Letters. His recordings help to raise awareness of the works of Augustin Barie, René VIERNE, Adolphe MARTY and Felix MOREAU.
Records:
– Augustin BARIÉ (1883-1915) “Intégrale de l’Œuvre pour orgue”
SOCD 917 – Éditions Solstice
– René VIERNE (1878-1918) “Œuvres choisies”
aux orgues historiques Debierre de la Cathédrale de Nantes (Orgue de chœur)
EL.CD.007 – Éditions Lade
– Adolphe MARTY – “Œuvres choisies”
aux orgues historiques Cavaillé-Coll de l’église abbatiale de Saint-Sever (Landes)
EL CD 025 – Éditions Lade
– Félix Moreau »Œuvres pour orgue »
Marie-Thérèse JEHAN, au Grand Orgue de la Cathédrale
Félix MOREAU, au Grand Orgue ainsi qu’à l’Orgue de Chœur de la Cathédrale
avec la participation du “Chœur Grégorien de Nantes” – direction : Maurice TILLIE
SOCD 209 – Éditions Solstice
– Félix MOREAU »Œuvres vocales et instrumentales »
Chœurs, Solistes vocaux et instrumentaux
Marie-Thérèse JEHAN, aux orgues historiques Debierre de la Cathédrale de Nantes (Orgue de chœur)
Félix MOREAU, au Grand Orgue
sous la direction de Jenö REHAK
SOCD 189 – Éditions Solstice
Martin Jean has risen to the highest ranks of the world’s concert organists and is recognized widely as a brilliant, warmly communicative artist and readily appealing personality. As the winner of two of the most prestigious organ competitions in the world, he has concertized extensively throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.
In 1986 Martin Jean was awarded first prize at the international Grand Prix de Chartres competition, held bi-annually at the Chartres Cathedral, France. As part of this prize, he was invited several times for concert tours of France, England and Luxembourg, where he played at the cathedrals of Poitiers, Chartres, Orléans, Chichester, Oxford and St. Alban’s. He also appeared in concert at Radio France in Paris as part of a recital series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of Louis Vierne, a performance which was broadcast live over much of western Europe. A testament to the respect which he has earned in France because of his win there, he has been invited by the competition’s board of directors to be one of the judges for the 1998 Chartres competition. He was a featured performer at the 2004 national convention of the American Guild of Organists held in Los Angeles and will be at the organizations’s 2006 national convention in Chicago.
In 1992 he won first prize at the National Young Artists’ Competition in Organ Performance, held bi-annually by the American Guild of Organists, in Atlanta, Georgia, at its national convention. Since then, he has played over 40 recitals, including appearances at the 1993 International Congress of Organists in Montréal, the Meyerson Symphony Hall in Dallas, the Naples Performing Arts Center in Florida, the Riverside Church in New York City and as soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC.
In addition, he has also won first prizes at the 1984 University of Michigan International Organ Performance Competition and the 1985 Flint National Organ Competition. He was also a finalist in the Calgary International Organ Festival Competition in 1990.
Martin Jean is Professor of Organ at the Yale School of Music and Director of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Prior to assuming his position at Yale, he served as Associate Professor of Music and University Organist at Valparaiso University in Indiana and as Associate Professor of Music at Concordia College in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan where he studied with Robert Glasgow and was also a holder of the Regents’ Fellowship. Additional coaching has been with David Craighead and Russell Saunders. Dr. Jean has commercial recordings on the Raven and Gothic labels.
Jan Willem Jansen was born in Holland.
In 1977 he graduated as soloist at the Royal Conservatory of the Haye, then he improved the harpsichord playing, in Amsterdam. He went to France to work with Xavier Darasse and became his pedagogical collaborator at the Toulouse Conservatory. Here he contributed to the ancient music department’s foundation and collaborated with Michel Bouvard for the new Organ superior department.
He played with the best baroque ensembles and became the titular of the Augustins’ Museum and Notre-Dame de la Daurade Basilique’s organs.
He recorded many CDs and, in 1996, he founded with Michel Bouvard the “Festival International Toulouse les Orgues”.
The German organist and composer, Werner Jacob, studied until 1961 organ with Walter Kraft , harpsichord, composition with Wolfgang Fortner, and conducting with Carl Ueter at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg, and privately organ with Anton Nowakowski.
Werner Jacob was from 1969 to 1991 Kantor at St. Sebald in Nuremberg, and continued as titular organist. From 1985 to 2003, he was artistic director of the International Organ Week in Nuremberg (ION) – Musica Sacra. From 1976 to 1998 he taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart in a special program of organ playing.
Besides his organ work Werner Jacob composed in almost all genres. His compostion include numerous organ pieces ; organ chamber music, including : Verbum mei (1996) for horn and organ in F for a Responsorium “Maulbronn-Lichtentahler Antiphonale” (1996) ; … Sine nomine super nominam … I, fantasia for organ, timpani and percussions (1985) ; Quartet for oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon (1960). Choral works, including : De visione resurrectionis for mixed choir, baritone solo, two percussion groups and organ (1966) ; Telos nomou for speaker and instruments ; Biblische Szene Babel for speaker, 5 Soliloquenten and mixed choir ; Canticum II-Canticum Canticorum for soloists, chorus and instrumentalists ; Canticum III : Canticum Caritatis Wenn ich mit Menschen und Engelszungen redete for soprano, 2 gongs and tam-tam (1991). Up to last days, he wrote a still unfinished work for large symphony orchestra.
Werner Jacob recorded on EMI Classics the complete organ works of JS Bach and the great organ works of Max Reger .
Werner Jacob died on May 23, 2006, after a long illness at the age of 68.
Sir Nicholas Jackson who was Organist and Master of the Choristers at St Davids Cathedral in Wales from 1977-1984 has achieved increasing distinction by the diversity of his activities as an organist, harpsichordist and composer.
He was an Organ Scholar at Wadham College, Oxford and a studied the organ at the Royal Academy of Music with C.H.Trevor and the harpsichord with George Malcolm. He later studied both instruments with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam and had conducting lessons with Sir Adrian Boult.
He made his debut at the Wigmore Hall playing 4 Harpsichord Concertos by Bach with his own Chamber Orchestra The Concertante of London, which made 2 LP records for RC.A and performed frequently with Ncholas Jackson as soloist at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall as well as making annual concert tours of Spain where Ncholas Jackson directed a Music Festival at the Monastery of Santes Creus. On October 19th 2003 The Concertante of London (now a baroque ensemble) will be performing Nicholas Jackson’s new edition of Bach’s `Musical Offering. From 1979-86 Nicholas Jackson was harpsichordist in the London Virtuosi (soloists of the London Symphony Orchestra) with whom he made frequent tours abroad.
Sir Nicholas Jackson became organist of two of London’s best known churches, St James’s Piccadilly and at St Lawrence Jewry-next-Guildhall before being appointed organist at St Davids Cathedral and became recognised as one of England’s foremost recitalists making regular concert tours of Europe and the U.S.A. He has twice played at Notre Dame, Paris, at Chartres, to an audience of 3000 at the Teatro Real in Madrid and in the Granada Festival. He has given recitals in London at the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and `Celebrity Recital’ at St Paul’s Cathedral. In September 2002 gave a series of concerts in Croatia.
He has made over 20 solo recordings both as an organist and a harpsichordist and his most recent CDs include J.S.Bach’s-Christmas Organ Music played at New College, Oxford, an anthology of Spanish Organ Music played at Segovia Cathedral and as well as a CD of Bach harpsichord music and another of music by Couperin.
As a composer Nicholas Jackson has written an Opera, The Reluctant Highwayman which vas produced at Broamhill in 1955 and his Mass for a Saints Day was recorded for Decca at Winchester Cathedral. NAXOS have recently released a CD of Nicholas Jackson performing his own organ music at Chartres Cathedral and he has since recorded a another-CD of his music in Paris. A CD of his complete Chorale musicis also planned.
Sir Nickolas Jackson is an Honorary Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford where he is also Hon. Patron of the College Music society and was Master of the Worshipful Company of Drapers in 1994-5 where he founded a series of concerts for young musicians which he continues to organise at Drapers’Hall in the City of London.
André Isoir, born in Saint-Dizier (France) did his musical studies at the Ecole César Franck where he was the pupil of Edouard Souberbielle, then at the National Superior Conservatory in Paris where he was unanimously awarded the first prize in organ and improvisation in the class of Rolande Falcinelli.
He subsequently was the winner of several international competitions : First Prize at St Albans (England) in 1965, and at Haarlem (Holland) where he was winner for three consecutive years – 1966, 1967, 1968 – thus receiving the “Challenge Prize”. He is the only Frenchman to have obtained this honor since the founding of the competition in 1951. André Isoir has made around sixty recordings and won the Grand Prix du Disque in 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1989 and 1991 as well as the President of the Republic Prize for his “Livre d’Or de l’Orgue Français”. In 1974, he was awarded the composition prize of the Amis de l’Orgue for his “Variations sur un Psaume Huguenot” .
André Isoir rounds off his musical culture with a thorough knowledge of organ-building, which contributes, he says, to a better approach of the different styles and periods from the point of view of both technique and registration.
He plays concerts throughout the world. He also gives many masterclasses and is jury member of the most prestigious international competitions.
Emeritus organist of the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris. Chevalier of the “Ordre National des Arts et Lettres” and the “Ordre National du Mérite”, he too has been promoted as better instrumental soloist of the year at the second Victoires de la Musique.
Yuka Ishimaru won the Grand prix and Dand & Polly Bales Prize at the 22nd International Organ Competition Grand prix de Chartres in 2010. From 2011, she started a concert tour in Europe and Japan and appears at various festivals and major venues. (Notre-Dame de Paris, Chartres, Bordeaux, Haarlem, St Albans, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Moscow etc…).
Yuka Ishimaru was born in Niigata, Japan. In 2003, she completed the organ training class at Ryutopia, Niigata-City Performing Arts Center. In 2007, she graduated from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music. She received the Ataka Prize when she was at the University. At the graduation of the University, she received Acanthus Music Award and DOSEIKAI Music Award. She studied the organ with Tsuguo Hirono,Rie Hiroe, and the harpsichord with Naoya Otsuka and Masaaki Suzuki.
In 2007, Yuka Ishimaru studied under Hatsumi Miura and completed Yokohama Minato Mirai Hall organist Internship Programm.
Under the scholarship from the government of Denmark, she continued her study from 2008 at the Royal Danish Academy of Music under Hans Fagius, and there she obtained the Organ Soloist Diploma. She won Scandinavia-Japan Sasakawa Foundation and Carl Nielsen Scholarship Foundation during the period.
She further studied the Clavichord under Joel Speerstra at University of Gothenburg and the organ under Ludger Lohmann at Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart as a member of Japanese Government (Agency for Cultural Affairs) Overseas Study Program for Artists.
Her debut CD with German romantic organ works will be recorded in 2015 at the historic Buchholz organ of the St.Nicolas in Stralsund (Germany).
Yuka Ishimaru is currently a member of the Japan Association of Organists.
Yuka ISHIMARU – Chartres 2010
Stefano Innocenti (Florence, Italy) holder of the organ Serassi eighteenth century Colorno, gave concerts as harpsichordist, throughout Europe, the United States, Canada, Brazil and Japan.
He played for the opening of many restored historic organs, including those of San Petronio in Bologna and Gabler Weingarten, he recorded several albums, some of which are dedicated to Andrea Gabrieli in solo concerts Haydn (for organ and harpsichord), Haendel concertos for organ and orchestra Paër and Salieri, recent compositions and Riccardo Castagnetti, harpsichord, all sonatas Giovanni Benedetto Platti.
He teaches organ and composition at the Conservatory of Parma, he taught at the Academy of the interpretation of Pistoia, Romainmôtier (Switzerland) and Toulouse. He was a member of the jury in international interpretation competition, composition and improvisation. Member of the Jury Grand Prix de Chartres 1982.
He lives between Parma and Arcola (La Spezia).
Since his arrivai in France in 2004, Mark Frederic Indorf has studied harmony and analysis with Dr. Naji Hakim at the Conservatoire National de Région de Boulogne-Billancourt and organ with Marie-Louis Langlais at the Conservatoire National de Région de Paris.
His Bachelor of Music was completed at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, USA. During his studies, he served as organist at Christ Lutheran Church and was an active member in the American Guild of Organiste, where he achieved the title of Service Playing and Colleague.
In his home country as well as in France, Mark Frederic Indorf has given concerts as a soloist or together with his brother Ion Indorf, a trumpeter living in Ohio. Currently, he is appointed organist at the English parish of St. Joseph Wear the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and also interim choirmaster of Voices Choeur International.
After obtaining a first prize in organ and in analysis, Mark-Frederic Indorf is continuing his professional development studying organ, counterpoint, and composition at the CNR in Paris.
At the Sorbonne, under the direction of Danielle Cohen-Levinas, he is also working on a Master 1 thesis about Olivier Messiaen.
Mark-Frederic INDORF – Chartres 2009
