A native of Washington state, Fred Gramann began his early organ studies with Dr. Edward Hansen of Seattle, winning the student organ competition sponsored by the Seattle Chapter of the American Guild of Organists while still in high school. While earning a bachelor’s degree in organ performance at Syracuse University, he won first prize in the 1972 Ft. Wayne National Organ Competition and was awarded the Arthur Poister Prize for outstanding organist in the Syracuse University School of Music for four consecutive years.

From 1972-75 Fred Gramann studied organ in Paris, France, with Marie-Claire Alain, also spending one year working with organist and composer Maurice Durufle. Fred earned a master’s degree in organ performance at the University of Michigan during the 1975-76 school year. He returned to Paris in 1976 as Director of Music at the American Church in Paris, the oldest non-governmental American institution abroad, recently celebrating his 30th year of music ministry.

Fred Gramann started a handbell program at the American Church in 1981 thanks to a gift of 2 octaves of handbells. The program has since grown to include three handbell choirs performing on 5 octaves of Schulmerich handbells, 4 1/2 octaves of Malmark handbells, 4 octaves of Petit and Fritsen handbells, 5 octaves of Choirchimes and a growing set of Whitechapel handbells. Fred Gramann has had numerous choral anthems and handbell works published in the US and is Honorary Associate Director of the Raleigh Ringers.

John Grady, director of music for St. Patrick’s Cathedral and an organist there and at the Metropolitan Opera, died in 1990 at his home in Manhattan. He was 56 years old.

John Grady became St. Patrick’s musical director in 1970, the fifth since the cathedral was dedicated in 1870. He had been organist there since 1965, the year he became organist at the Met.

He had been musical director at the Church of the Holy Family, also known as the Parish Church of the United Nations. In 1965, during Pope Paul VI’s visit to the United Nations, Mr. Grady organized the choral and orchestral program for a papal meeting with representatives of other major faiths at the Holy Family Church.

He traveled extensively in Europe giving concerts, including several appearances at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris and at Westminster Cathedral in London.

Born in Argentina, Gerardo Gorosito has studied piano and organ at the Municipal Conservatory of Music “Manuel de Falla” (Buenos Aires), where he obtained a First Prize and Gold Medal.

French Government Scholarship to study with Edward Souberbielle at the Catholic Institute of Paris and Michel Chapuis at the Schola Cantorum, he was already well known in France, especially in his series of concerts in Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois and occurring in Notre-Dame de Paris.

He also had great success on tour in Germany, Uruguay (1 “International Organ Festival in Montevideo), and Spain (VII International Organ Week in Madrid).

In Argentina, he was the founder and first president of the Argentine Association of Organists.

Since 1980, Gerardo Gorosito lived in Brazil, where he was Professor of Organ Superior Courts of the School of Music and Fine Arts of Paraná, and organist of the Cathedral of Curitiba.

He received the First Prize at the first National Organ Competition in Brazil, organized by the National School of the University of Rio de Janeiro Music.

His musical activities also extend to the direction of choirs and orchestras including the Camerata Antiqua de Curitiba, the Symphony Orchestra of Ponta Grossa, the Chamber of Curitiba Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of the Music School ” Villa Lobos “Joinville.

Gerardo Gorosito led the choir Curitiba, official choir of the city, which he was the founder, and with whom he has made tours in Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

He’s now died.

David Goode is Organist and Head of Keyboard at Eton College, where he presides over a unique collection of historic instruments and teaches some of the UK’s most talented young organists ; he combines this with a concert career that takes him around the world.

He was a music scholar at Eton College and then organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge from 1991-4, graduating with a first and the MPhil degree. While there he studied the organ with David Sanger and in Holland with Jacques van Oortmerssen. From 1996-2001 he was Sub-Organist at Christ Church, Oxford and as such toured in Europe, the US, Brazil and Japan and made several recordings. Having won the top prizes awarded at the 1997 St Alban’s Interpretation Competition, and the Recital Gold Medal at the 1998 Calgary Competition, he concentrated on a freelance career between 2001 and 2003. From 2003-2005, he combined a busy international career with the post of Organist-in-Residence at First Congregational Church, Los Angeles, home to the world’s largest church organ.

Recent years have seen a rare solo Proms recital, concerts around Europe, the US and Australia, and a fruitful partnership with the BBCNOW in several concerti. In 2009 he played the Art of Fugue at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, premiered a new work written for him by John Pickard and played Maxwell Davies’ Solstice of Light at the Proms and the City of London Festival. He has an established partnership with the trumpeter Alison Balsom, and will be performing with her in Passau, Germany in July 2011. He is much in demand as a teacher, and will again run the organist’s course for the Eton Choral Courses this summer. In recent years he has composed a number of choral and organ works, including a collaboration with the poet Francis Warner ; performances include those by the choirs of King’s and St. John’s Colleges, Cambridge. Engagements in 2010/11 have included the Mathias Concerto in the St David’s Festival, a return to the Vienna Konzerthaus and a recital at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is a Featured Artist at the 2011 BBC Proms, with performances including Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass at the First Night of the Proms and Michael Berkeley’s Organ Concerto.

Since his first solo CD, ‘French Showpieces from King’s’, recorded while still an undergraduate, his recordings have consistently received critical acclaim. Of his 2004 release from Los Angeles ‘The Great Organs of First Church vol 2’ The American Organist said ‘David Goode shows a fearless command of one of the world’s largest church organs. A magisterial performance of Edwin H. Lemare’s transcription of Wagner’s Overture to Die Meistersinger must be one of the finest renditions of this work on record’. 2004 also saw the first volume of a landmark project to record the complete organ works of Max Reger on 17 CDs (‘Finally, there’s a set… that competes with Germani’s 1960’s HMV recordings – I thought the day would never come’, Choir and Organ).

Born in Buenos Aires, Adelma Gomez gets her Higher Diploma in Teacher Municipal Conservatory Manuel de Falla with maximum entries in all disciplines. She studied organ under the direction of Jules Perceval and Hector Zeoli and harmony, counterpoint and fugue with Theodore Fuchs.

His concert activity and teacher is very intense. Adelma Gomez was the first organist to play almost all the recent organ music of his country. It occurred especially in “Festivals International de Música Contemporánea”. In 1972 she played for the first time in South America “Organ Book” by Olivier Messiaen and in 1978 she gave a recital tribute to the composer for his 70 birthday under the patronage of the Embassy France to Argentina. For eight years she has made in Buenos Aires concert series devoted to the French organ music from the Renaissance to the present. Adelma Gomez occurs throughout Europe (Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, England, Belgium, Portugal, Poland, USSR) and also in Latin America (Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay) winning at every concert a great success. She has also made recordings for Radio Hilversum (Netherlands), ORF (Vienna) and Nacional de Espana.

Since 1973 she was Professor of Organ and Gregorian Chant at the National University of San Juan. She organizes the annual “Festivals Nacionales de Cursos y Organo” with Argentine and foreign performers and many scholars from across the country.

Since 1983 Adelma Gomez directs and animates the “Conciertos de Organo” for the City of Buenos Aires, which has more than 70 organs in activity. This cycle has just celebrated in November 1987 the realization of its 300′ concert.

Adelma Gomez died tragically in Buenos Aires November 9, 2011.

Professor FCUM Wacław Golonka, DMus Hab.

Pro­fes­sor at the Fry­deryk Chopin Uni­ver­sity of Music in War­saw, obtained his post-doctoral degree at the Acad­emy of Music in Cra­cow. He com­pleted higher edu­ca­tion in music at the Acad­emy of Music in Cra­cow and Hochschule für Musik und Darstel­lende Kunst in Vienna, class of Pro­fes­sor Hans Hasel­böck. He obtained his uni­ver­sity diplo­mas in the field of organ play­ing with honours.

He is a prize-winner of organ com­pe­ti­tions in Prague (sec­ond prize), Nurem­berg (third prize) and Pre­to­ria, where in addi­tion to the first prize he received the fol­low­ing awards: for the best per­for­mance of the trio sonata by J.S. Bach, for the best recital in the third round of the competi­tion, and for the best per­for­mance of a piece with an orches­tra in the final round of the competition.

His con­cert activ­ity led him to Asia, Africa, North Amer­ica and many Euro­pean coun­tries. He has per­formed in many Euro­pean cathe­drals (e.g. in Vienna, Chartres, Lau­sanne), in con­cert halls of the War­saw Phil­har­monic, Berliner Phil­har­monie, Not­ting Albert Hall, Meis­tersinger­halle in Nurem­berg, Cleve­land Museum of Art, hall of the Aus­trian radio ORF in Vienna, Slo­vak Radio in Bratislava and repeat­edly in the B. Smetana hall in Prague. In 1997 he gave a series of con­certs in the USA, he also went on three tours across the Repub­lic of South Africa per­form­ing in major music cen­tres of that country.

Wacław Golonka per­formed as a soloist with orches­tras: Radio Phil­har­mony Orches­tra in Pre­to­ria, Byd­goszcz Phil­har­monic, Brno Phil­har­monic, Prague’s FOK, Con­certo Avenna, Biel­sko Cham­ber Orches­tra, Capella Cra­covien­sis and Sile­sian Cham­ber Orches­tra. With the orches­tra Con­certo Avenna he recorded an organ con­certo by Paweł Łukaszewski. The record­ing was included on the album with pieces by this com­poser, which received the “Fry­deryk 2008″ award.

He has made numer­ous record­ings for TV and radio sta­tions. His record­ing for TV Polo­nia illus­trated the series of films “Pol­ish Madon­nas” and in 1998 the TV Katow­ice made a film about his activ­ity enti­tled “The Music of Sound and Space”. Record­ings made ​​by the Czech Radio are pre­sented on the Euro­pean EBU net­work. The Czech Radio has also released CD record­ings. Later on he recorded for the Dutch radio Hil­ver­sum, Ger­man Bay­erischer Rund­funk, Aus­trian ORF, Slo­vak Radio and Czech Television.

As a cham­ber musi­cian he col­lab­o­rates with many artists pre­sent­ing music from all peri­ods and styles. A wide field of his activ­ity is work related to the orga­ni­za­tion of music fes­ti­vals. He is an author of a CD record­ing and a book enti­tled Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877–1933) – in the Ele­ment of Sound Colourism.

Eight CD albums with cham­ber and solo music doc­u­ment his var­ied artis­tic activity.

He has con­ducted lec­tures, among other insti­tu­tions, at acad­e­mies of music in Gdańsk and Poz­nań, Hochschule für Musik und The­ater in Leipzig, and dur­ing a course of organ music inter­pre­ta­tion in St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.

Wacław Golonka, DMus Hab. is employed at the FCUM hold­ing the post of Pro­fes­sor at the Chair of Organ and Harpsichord.

Following comprehensive musical studies in Berne, Freiburg i.Br. and Paris in theory (Theo Hirsbrunner), composition (Klaus Huber), organ (Heinrich Gurtner, Gaston Litaize, Daniel Roth) and conducting (Paul Theissen, Erich Schmid), Daniel Glaus continued with a pervasive and formative self-study of Heraclitus, Platon, the Bible, gregorianic, Frescobaldi, Bach, Swedenborg, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, Rilke, Kandinsky, Schönberg, Webern, Nono, Cacciari, butterflies, trees, mountains and most particularly life, family, children, pupils, concerts and environment (political-economical-ecological-ethical).

He works as a composer, a church musician at the Stadtkirche Biel and as a professor at the music schools of Zurich (composition and theory) and Berne (organ)

He plays the organ at concerts on an international level.

Daniel Glaus is trongly engaged in questions concerning the building of organs (including the conception of the swallow’s-nest organ in Biel, Metzler 1994 ; director of the research project ‘Innov-Organ-um’ for the development of a sensitive-dynamic organ)

– Co-initiator of the IV International Congress for Church Music (New Music in the Church), Ittingen/TG 1997.

– Fruitful collaboration and friendship with the poet and pastor Andres Urweider, Biel.

– Lives with his family in Biel.

Born in Pont-Audemer (Eure) April 19, 1910, Jean Giroud was a student of Marcel Dupré (organ), Paul Dukas (composition), Alfred Cortot (piano) and André Pirro (musicology). Having the chance to live in Paris and very attracted by the liturgical role of the organ, it also benefited from the teaching of Joseph Bonnet and Charles Tournemire. Organist named to the metropolitan church of Saint Louis at Grenoble in May 1934 he was one of the prestigious representatives of this great generation of French organists born in the early decades of the twentieth century, for whom the relationship between art and music the liturgy was something fundamental. Extremely convinced and convincing about it, Giroud Jean presided over sacred music at this forum for over 60 years, tireless advocate of plainchant, quality polyphony, and the organ of which he was the one of the great fiery and inspired performers.

Familiar of Ravel who assured his friendship until his death, Stravinsky, Auric, Britten, Dallapicola and thinkers like Claudel, Guitton or Maritain, exceptional friendship of over 50 years between him and Olivier Messiaen, and with Gaston Litaize Pierre Cochereau and many other French and foreign personalities, many are died.

Eminent musicologist, he introduced the teaching of musicology at the University of Grenoble which was created thanks to his efforts, a diploma of Letters Arts, Music and Musicology section.

He directed the university choir Grenoble whose reputation became international. Quality earned him a contract to be associated with the record company Erato. In 1973 the choir was given the “International Grand Prix du Disque” for the interpretation of the vocal a cappella works by Francis Poulenc, under the direction of Jean Giroud.

He was a researcher, to whom we owe many musicology studies and a prolific composer whose musical works cover a wide register: organ, piano, orchestra, chamber music, film music, vocal polyphony. For example: his images for Way of the Cross on the text of Paul Claudel, and Toccata for the Elevation.

Jean Giroud was a figure of organist racy, uncompromising fighter mediocrity and conformism. His career as an organist and choir director took him all over Europe. But it was above all a musician whose key feature of the artistic life was his church musician activity.

Giroud Jean taught organ, the conservatories of Grenoble, Strasbourg, Chambery. He was also a lecturer at the conservatories of Nice and Annecy.

Knight of the Legion of Honour and the National Order of Merit, Officer of Academic Palms and a Commander in the Pontifical Order of St. Gregory the Great, John Giroud died January 31, 1997 in Grenoble.

Born in Paris, she studied at the National Conservatory of Music where she was awarded many first prizes : organ, improvisation, music history, counterpoint and fugue.

Organist, concert artist, professor, Marie-Louise GIROD has made herself known through her concerts troughout Europe, through her permanent contributions to multiple radio programs and her important activity as a pedagogue.

President of the Saint-Dié Organ Academy, member of the Superior Commission of Historical Monuments, president of the organ section of the Protestant Federation of France, soloist at the French radio : O.R.T.F., composer, Marie-Louise GIROD has been the organist of the Oratoire du Louvre in Paris for many years.

The high conception she has of her task is not without analogy to her pastoral vocation.

Her participation in the liturgical development of the church service is a tributs to the authenticity, joy and richness of the Évangile.

Brillant improviser, knowing how to weld together both talent and technique, with strength and sensitivity, Marie-Louise GIROD expresses through her organ-playing, not without a certain note of humer, a way of thinking that is ever alert.

Marie-Louise GIROD as official photographer, joined her husband, the famous archeologist, André PARROT, member of the Instituts and director of the Louvre Museum, on many important expeditions.

She died August 29, 2014 (98 years) in Paris.

Lorenzo Ghielmi teaches at the Hoschule für Musik in Lübeck (Germany) and at the Milan Accademia Internazionale della Musica. He is also organist on the Ahrend organ (1991) at the basilica of San Simpliciano in Milan where he played the complete organ work of J. S. Bach. He lives with his wife Elisabetta and five children in a small village near the border to Switzerland.

He gives concerts throughout Europe, Japan and United States as an organist and harpsichordist and with his group “la Divina Armonia”.

He has made many radio and CD recordings (including for Teldec, Harmonia Mundi…). Two of is latest recording has been awarded with “Diapason d’or”.

He combines his concert activities with a passion for musicological research : he has brought out editions of music by Frescobaldi and composers from Milan, as well as studies dealing with 16th and 17th century organ building and with Bach interpretation. Recently he has written a book on Bruhn’s organ works.

He is often invited to sit on juries for international organ competitions (Toulouse, Milan, Bruges, Tokyo) and to give lectures and masterclasses, including the Harleem Academy.

Lorenzo Ghielmi was the main artistic consultant for the new Mascioni organ constructed at Tokyo cathedral.