“His career has won him recognition in the United States, England, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. He now lives in England”

Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1947, Benbow studied organ at Syracuse University and the University of Oklahoma.

He won the 1967 National Federation of Music Clubs national playing competition and, in 1968, served on the faculty of the Bay View Michigan Summer School of Music.

In 1970 Benbow was awarded a Fulbright Grant for study in Cologne, Germany, and in 1972 he won the highly-coveted first prize in the ‘Grand Prix de Chartres’.

Charles was the organist for Central Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas, during the 1980’s, and he taught other organists during that time. In addition, he gave concerts in various cities in the US (NYC, Pittsburgh, etc…) and Europe.

He died 16 May 1988 in Houston, Texas.

Diane Meredith Belcher began studying organ with David Spicer and made her solo recital debut at age 15. She is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with John Weaver and David Craighead respectively; Clarence Watters and Wilma Jensen were also her teachers. She is a winner of both the St. Alban’s (England) and Chartres (France) international organ competitions and has won first prize in the American Guild of Organists’ professional certification examinations.

An internationally acclaimed organist, she has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Canada, including Disney Hall, Grace Cathedral, Verizon Hall, Girard College, Benaroya Hall, Woolsey Hall and the Oregon Bach Festival.

She has performed numerous times with orchestras, and has given duo recitals with such artists as trombonist Joseph Alessi of the New York Philharmonic and trumpeter Rob Roy McGregor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Among her many recordings, the premiere of Claremont’s Glatter-Götz/Rosales organ received the Golden Ear Award.

Also a church musician, professor of organ and music theory, choral conductor, and composer, she has worked at such institutions as Holy Trinity Lutheran/Bach Vespers (New York), Dartmouth College, Saint Mark’s (Philadelphia), and Westminster Choir College.

http://www.dianemeredithbelcher.com/

Born in Nantes in 1968.

After being one of the last disciples of Gaston Litaize the CNR of St-Maur-des-Fossés, Henri-Franck Beaupérin gets at the Paris Conservatoire first prize Organ (class of Michel Chapuis and Olivier Latry) and Improvisation (class Loïc Mallié).

Winner of the Tokyo International Competition (1992), Improvisation Prize at Franz Liszt Competition in Budapest (1993), he received the 1995 Grand Prix Interpretation of the First International Organ Competition of the City of Paris, in unanimity of the jury.
In 2001 he was awarded the Fondation de France (Prize Charles Oulmont).

Titular organist of the Cathedral of Angers, he developed, in collaboration with the festival “The Spring of Organs”, an important musical activity to the development and enrichment of organ heritage in Anjou.
He is artistic director of the Regional Academy of Organ Improvisation in the Pays de la Loire.

Performer, teacher and improviser, he is the guest of many international festivals in Europe and Asia.

He has made several recordings that received critical acclaim, including, for the first time, the work’s complete organ works of Raphael Fumet, he realized the edition (Éditions Delatour).
He is also the author of several transcriptions for organ, of works for piano or orchestral of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Franck and Rachmaninoff.

http://chamades.free.fr/

The German organist Christian Barthen (* 1984 in Saarbrücken) received numerous prizes and awards at international competitions, including the “Johann Sebastian Bach Competition” in Wiesbaden (D), at the International Organ Competition of St Maurice d’Agaune (CH) and the second prize at the in the international organ competition “Grand Prix de Chartres” .

After a subsequent concert career, with invitations to festivals and concert serres of cathedrals and concert halls throughout Europe, Christian Barthen is meanwhile among the most renowned concert organisas of the younger generation. Since 2012, he is recording artist and co-producer of the “Organ Encyclopedia” of the CD label Naxos.

Christian Barthen studied at the Academy of Music / Saar, organ, piano and harpsichord, and church music A and music education. His principal teachers were in Saarbrücken Andreas Rothkopf, Wolfgang Rubsam, Jean and Robert Micault Leonardy. Private studies led him to 2011-2012 Philippe Lefebvre at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. Since 2012, he studied in the soloist class of Prof. Dr. Ludger Lohmann at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart.

Christian Barthen – Chartres 2012

http://www.christianbarthen.com/

David Baskeyfield is the winner of the first prize and audience prize at the St Albans International Organ Competition, 2011. Following success in a number earlier competitions (1st prize, audience prize, Miami International Organ Competition 2010; 1st prize, Mader Memorial Organ Competition, LA, 2010; 2nd prize, Dublin International Organ Competition 2011, 1st prize, Rodland 2011; and 1st prize and audience prize, AGO National Competition in Organ Improvisation 2011) has begun to embark on a performing based both in Europe and in the United States.

David read Law at Oxford as organ scholar at St John’s College, studying with John Wellingham and David Sanger. He is currently a doctoral student at the Eastman School of Music (New York) under David Higgs and William Porter. Between Oxford and Eastman he spent a year as organ scholar of Christ Church Cathedra) and St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.

Some recent and upcoming recital engagements include Washington National Cathedral, National City Christian Church, St Thomas’ 5th Avenue, King’s College, Cambridge, St Albans Cathedral, St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, St Peter’s Cathedral, Worms (Germant’), St Bavo, Haarlem, and St Sulpice. A recording project with Priory is planned to take place this year, tentatively comprising lesser-known works of the French symphonic school, at the Cavaillé-Coll organ of St Étienne, Caen.

Aside from solo performance David is active as an accompanist, continuo player and occasional cocktail pianist. He has also taken to accompanying silent movies; recent engagements have featured The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and Nosferatu (1922). He also enjoys occasional access to the large Wurlitzer organ in the Auditorium Theatre in downtown Rochester, and has gone some way to legitimising this private indulgence in being elected as a director on the Board of the Rochester Theatre Organ Society.

He is enthusiastic about food, red wine, microbrews, and Malawi cichlids. He is represented in the USA by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists.

David Baskeyfield – Chartres 2012

http://www.concertorganists.com/artists/david-baskeyfield/

Jennifer Bate is in the top rank of international organists and has long been a favourite at all the world’s great festivals. Many composers have written for her, inspired by her phenomenal technique and ability to bring out the colours of the organ. Jennifer gives master-classes worldwide and lectures on a wide range of musical subjects. In addition to a performance of Livre du Saint Sacrement in Westminster Cathedral and a solo BBC Promenade concert (La Nativité), Jennifer’s 2008 programme included recitals in Austria, the Canaries, Croatia, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Monaco and Spain.

In 1990, Jennifer’s artistry and outstanding contribution to music received international recognition with the Personnalité de l’Année award by the French-based jury. She was only the third British artist to achieve this distinction, after Sir Georg Solti and Sir (later Lord) Yehudi Menuhin. In 1996, Jennifer was granted Honorary Citizenship of the Italian province of Alessandria for her services to music in Northern Italy over 20 years. In 2002, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2007, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music by Bristol University and, in 2008, was made an OBE in The Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Jennifer is recognised as the world authority on the organ works of Olivier Messiaen, with whom she worked extensively and became his organist of choice. Her world première recording of his last masterpiece for organ, Livre du Saint Sacrement, had exceptional international success, winning a Grand Prix du Disque. In 1995, Jennifer opened the Messiaen Festival at l’Eglise de la Sainte Trinité, Paris, where his complete organ works were performed and recorded. Among numerous awards for her CD, were the Diapason d’Or (France) and Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

http://www.classical-artists.com/jbate/

Pianist and organist, professor aggregated of Music, Catherine BARRET teaches since 1981 with the middle school of Illiers-Combray.

She begins her musical studies with the International Conservatory of Paris (Piano, Music theory) a prizewinner of which she is and perfects with Gabriel Tacchino. She supplements her formation in the Sorbonne where she studies Musicology and obtains the License.

Holder of the Capes in 198o, she teaches Musical Education without ceasing her personal formation: choir conducting and musical writing (Jean-Yves Aizic and Patrick Delabre), operatic singing with Didier Verdeille, Nicole Kuster and Gil Kether (then singers in the Opera of Paris).

She accompanied several choirs : Compostelle in Paris, Autrica to Lucé, Cluster in Lèves and the training courses of the Association Lyric Armor.

Holder of the Aggregation in 2003, she begins studying organ in the class recently created by Patrick Delabre, holder of the Great Church organ of Chartres’ Cathedral.

Student in his class of the Conservatory of Chartres, she obtains a DEM of organ in 2012 and a First prize in the class of Improvement in June, 2014.

Catherine Barret – Chartres 2010

Michael Bártek is a laureate of the Young Organists’ Competition in Opava (Czech Republic) in 2002, of the International Alexander Goedicke Organ Competition in Moscow in 2011 and he is an absolute prizewinner (1st prize and public prize) of the 13th International César Franck Competition Haarlem (Netherlands) in 2010.

Michael Bártek was born in 1984 in Brno, Czech Republic. He started playing the piano at the age of 7, the organ of 14, following a suggestion by Marie Karasová. He studied organ at the Brno Conservatory in 2000-2005 by Zdenek Novác(ek and Petr Kolar, since 2005 until 2009, he was a student at the Janácek Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno in the class of Vera Her(manová and Pavel Cerný. He took part of the half-year student stay (within the European student programme “Erasmus”) in Strasbourg, France, by Parisian organist Christophe Mantoux (Saint-Séverin Church). He is a holder of a bachelor diploma of organ performance from Brno (2009) and of a “Master Professionnel” diploma (2012) from Strasbourg (studies of organ with Christophe Mantoux and Aude Heurtematte). Michael is also titular of a DEM diploma (2012) of harpsichord (studies with Aline Zylberajch in Strasbourg). Michael also studied with Martin Gester (baroque organ music) and Francis Jacob (basso continuo).

As a recitalist, Michael appears regularly in France, Netherlands, Germany and the Czech Republic. Renditions of his project The Ring are intended to be performed im many places in Europe. Currently, Michael lives in Strasbourg. He also teaches organ at the Protestant Organ School in Strasbourg (AFORGEP) and at the Music School of Sarre-Union and is a liturgical organist of the consistory Robertsau – Saint Matthew of Strasbourg.

Michael Bartek – Chartres 2013

http://michael-bartek.org/

Anne-Marie BARAT was born in Fontainebleau June 20, 1948. It is dedicated to the early study of music and came at the age of 11 years at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris, where she made all his studies, thus providing a solid musical training.

Pianist, she studied with Marcel Ciampi and Vlado PERLEMUTER, and obtained a First Soloist Prize for Piano at the Academy Marguerite LONG.

Counterpoint First Prize, Award of Harmony, Fugue and Musical Analysis at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris, where she was the disciple of Henry CHALLAN, Norbert DUFOURCQ Pierre REVEL, DANDELOT Georges, Alain Weber, Marcel BITSCH and Elsa BARRAINE.

Then in 1970, under the guidance of his teacher André Marchal, of which she is the last student, she devoted herself entirely to the organ between the Organ Class Rolande FALCINELLI at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris where she obtained a brilliant First Prize in 1976 in his first contest.

She obtained in addition to the price and Albert Alexandre GUILMANT PERILHOU at the Paris Conservatory and became a soloist at Radio France in 1978.

In 1979, she wins the contest of “Organ of Friends” of Paris.

Great Organ of the owner of the St. Louis Church of Fontainebleau in 1974 and simultaneously from 1982 assistant Canon Henri DEAN Grand Organ of the Cathedral of Soissons, she became the holder of the instrument at Easter 1988.

In St. Louis Fontainebleau actively supervises the restoration of the organ in consultation with the organ builders and Benoist SARELOT and the Municipality.

Popular educator, she taught organ and Scripture at the Municipal School of Fontainebleau Music and Organ at the Conservatory Roger BOURDIN of Marly-le-Roi. Among his former students who pursue a successful career include Eric Lebrun in France and Emmanuel LE DIVELLEC Switzerland.

In 1987 she was a visiting professor for Organ Class the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau.

His concert career has taken both in France and abroad.

In Paris (Notre Dame, Saint-Louis des Invalides, St. Augustin, St. Louis d’Antin, Notre-Dame de Lorette, Saint-Louis de la Salpetriere, Studios 103 and 104 Radio-France), the cathedrals of Besançon, Chartres, Versailles, Dijon, Amiens, Beauvais, Angoulême, Meaux, Bourges, Quimper, Auxerre, Soissons, Bellay and many festivals; Lannion, Guitres, Honfleur, Locronan, Carnac, Biarritz, Saint-Pierre-Quiberon, Bergerac, Auditorium Maurice Ravel in Lyon … and abroad in Belgium, England, Morocco, Switzerland and Germany.

She was a member of the Committee of the Organ of Seine-et-Marne before the General Council and a member of the jury: City of Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, Schola Cantorum, Competition Friends of the Organ, International Competition of Beauvais.

The 21 December 1990 on the N7 between Fontainebleau and Nemours, she is suddenly removed from the affection of his people, as she was the rescue of a car accident.

Born in London in 1966, PETER BANNISTER began his musical studies with David de Warrenne (piano) and John Shepherd (organ). After obtaining the piano performer’s diploma of the Royal College of Music in 1985, he read Music at King’s College, Cambridge, where he gained a first class BA and an M. Phil in Musicology. He completed his studies in Paris between 1989 and 1993 with Genevieve Ibanez, Michel Beroff (piano) and Naji Hakim (composition), where he currently lives as a freelance musician.

He has been the winner of several prizes at national and international level as a composer and performer: Prix André Caplet for composition, Académie des Beaux-Arts (Institut de France) 1999 Nürnberg International Organ Improvisation competition (Johann-Pachelbel-Preis) 1996 Chartres International Organ Competition – improvisation 1992 Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales – piano 1984 He has also been the recipient of prizes and scholarships from Cambridge University, the Countess of Munster / Leverhulme Trusts and the French Government. In 2007 three of his works received awards at the International Composition Competition in San Sebastian (Spain).

His catalogue comprises orchestral, choral, chamber and solo vocal and instrumental music, with performances in Europe (South Bank Centre, St John’s Smith Square, Festival Klangbogen Wien, Berlin, Paris, Festival J.S. Bach St Donat, Bourges, Chartres, Chichester, Münster, Oliwa, Trieste, Ulm Cathedrals, Würzburger Bachtage) and North America (Ann Arbor, Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York) as well as broadcasts on Italian and American public radio. In 2002 he was a featured composer at the Rencontres Musicales de La Prée chamber music festival. In March 2004 John Nelson and the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris gave the first performance of his “Nuages de Magellan” at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, followed in 2006 by “Pursued by Bronze Horsemen” in memory of Shostakovich. Current projects include the choral cycle “Da stand das Meer” on texts by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Abendempfindung” for the Polish soprano Aleksandra Zamojska, “The Sign of the Son of Man” for organ, a trio entitled… jakby na krawedzi swiata for the New York clarinettist David Gould, an oratorio “Et iterum venturus est” for John Nelson and the SOLI DEO GLORIA foundation (Chicago) as well as a large symphonic work for the Niederrheinische Sinfoniker.

As a solo pianist and organist, he has been invited to give concerto performances (Händel, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov…) and recitals in Britain, Austria (Wiener Stephansdom), Croatia, Denmark, France (Notre-Dame de Paris, Bourges and Chartres Cathedrals), Germany (Baden-Baden, Bayreuth, Bochumer Orgeltage, Hannover, Stuttgart), Holland, Italy (Arezzo, Chiusi, Padova, Ravenna, Udine), Poland, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and the USA. Improvisation and contemporary music (Gubaidulina, Kurtag, MacMillan, Pärt, Tom Johnson) feature prominently in his programmes. He has given lectures, conference papers and masterclasses in Britain, Sweden (Gothenburg Organ Art Academy), Croatia (Organnum Histriae) and the USA (Carthage College Organ Festival, Wisconsin). As a pianist/vocal coach/assistant conductor he has worked in recent seasons with the Festival International Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, the Opéra National de Paris, the Théâtre du Châtelet and Choeur de Chambre Accentus with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, James Conlon, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Jurowski, Sylvain Cambreling, Jiri Belohlavek, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and various international opera soloists.

http://www.peterjohnbannister.com/