Monica Melcova received her first musical education at the age of five in Slovakia, where she was born in 1974. After her studies of piano and organ at the conservatory in Kosice, she went on to study at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with Hans Haselböck and Michael Radulescu and received her „Magister Artium“ with highest distinction and a prize of honor by the Austrian federal government.

She was then admitted to the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris for post gradual courses to perfect her organ playing with Olivier Latry and Michel Bouvard. She received grants from the Foundation Meyer and the Mécénat Musical Société Générale. The Nadia et Lili Boulanger Foundation supported her studies of improvisation with Loic Mallié at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Lyon.

Monica has successfully participated in numerous competitions : she received the Diplôme d’honneur at the Festival in Bruges in 1997, the Audience’s Price in the Festival in Zilina in 1997 and the Special Price of the Unesco in Lisbon in the year 2000. She has made recordings with the Austrian Radio in Vienna, La Radio de la Suisse Romande, France Musique, RTBF Bruxelles etc…

In 2002 she was appointed organist of the KERN organ at the Kitara Hall in Sapporo, where she performed and taught master-classes for a year. During her stay in Japan, she played concerts at venues like SUNTORY HALL in Tokyo, METROPOLITAN ART SPACE in Tokyo, NIIGATA PERFORMING CENTER, MORIOKA CIVIC CULTURAL HALL, YOKOHAMA MINATO MIRAI CONCERT Hall etc… Since then, she has returned to Japan several times to take part in projects organized by the Kitara Concert Hall and the Alliance Française in Osaka and Sapporo. She has also continued to teach master-classes for the organ academy of Hokkaido. In Europe, concert tours take her to the prime examples of her instrument : she has played in NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS, CATHEDRAL SE of LISBONNE, LA MADELEINE, CHAPELLE ROYALE DE GRENADE….

She also regularly works with soloists and chamber music groups like Nora Cismondi (Principal oboe of the Orchestre National de France), Julia Schläffer (Flute) or Musica Aeterna. Currently, Monica is organist at Saint Martin des Champs in Paris and teaches in the Normandy. In September 2006, she opened an organ class at the Conservatory Gaston Litaize at Montereau.

In September 2012 she is invited as member of the jury of international competition Grand Prix de Chartres.

Monica MELCOVA – Chartres 2012

http://www.monica-melcova.net/

Ghislain Leroy was born in Tourcoing (France) in 1982. Both his father and mother are organists.

Alongside his secondary education, he also studied the piano, the organ as well as composition.

From 2001 to 2003, he attended François-Henri Houbart’s class at the Regional National Conservatory in Rueil-Malmaison where he was awarded a First Prize and an Advanced Prize for the organ. In 2004 he won the Harmony Prize at the Higher National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Jean-François Zygel’s class. In the organ class at the Higher National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Lyons, he studied under Jean Boyer, Louis Robilliard, Liesebeth Schlumberger and François Espinasse.

The Jury of the Fifth City of Paris International organ Competition, under the presidency of Michel Chapuis, awarded him the “Premier Grand Prix d’Interprétation”. At the age of twenty-two, this prize launched him on the international scene. He regularly gives concerts in Paris (Radio France, Notre-Dame, St Eustache ) as well as at the principal French cathedrals. In addition, he has been invited to several major festivals in Europe, Russia and Asia.

He has realized three cds recordings, including repertoire from the 17th century to the present day. Keen to promote contemporary organ music, he regularly includes works by Jean-Louis Florentz, Jean-Pierre Leguay, Valéry Aubertin and Thierry Escaich in his concert performances. He gave the first performance of both Deux pièces d’orgue and “Et l’unique cordeau des trompettes marines” by Thomas Lacôte.

In 2005, he undertook a research project concerning the composer and organist Xavier Darasse, and made an inventory of the document collection held by the Higher National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Lyons.

He is supported by Cultures France through the Déclic program for young artists, in collaboration with Radio France and Mécénat Musical Société Générale. He is sponsored by the ADAMI on the year 2007.

In 2007, he was appointed as resident organist at the Sapporo Concert Hall Kitara, in Japan. He took part to several concerts abroad Japan (Sapporo , Tokyo, Kanazawa …). He has been chosen to give two exceptional concerts with the NHK Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit and broadcasted in live on Japanese radio/television.

Ghislain is presently teaching organ at the Soissons and Laon Conservatories. He also plays two importants organs in Le Touquet and at Notre-Dame de la Treille cathedral in Lille.

Ghislain LEROY – Chartres 2012

http://www.ghislainleroy.org/Accueil.html

Ami Hoyano began her musical studies with piano, then the organ at the age of 16. Admitted to the university Geidai (Tokyo University for Fine Arts and Music) in the class of Tsuguo Hirono, Naoko Imai and Makiko Hayashima, she obtained a Bachelor degree and a Master’s degree for organ. She received several awards for the best performance (Ataka price, price Akansas…) at the University Geidai.

ln 2007, Ami Hoyano was admitted to the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris in the class of Olivier Latry and Michel Bouvard and received his Master in June 2011 after a recital at Notre-Dame de Paris. She is currently attending Bernard Foccroulle the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels since September 2011.

She is supported by the Legacy Foundation Jabesh, Tarrazi Fund and a grant from the Japanese Government Overseas Study Program for Artists.

Ami HOYANO – Chartres 2012

Clyde Holloway came to prominence in 1964 when he won the National Young Artists Competition of the American Guild of Organists in Philadelphia. This achievement inaugurated a distinguished concert career that continues to receive high acclaim throughout the United States where he performs under the auspices of Karen McFarlane Artists. He has performed for numerous National and Regional Conventions of the American Guild of Organists and has appeared in recital in Mexico City, the West Indies and Europe.

Dr. Holloway earned degrees from the University of Oklahoma and Union Theological Seminary where he was a student of Mildred Andrews and Robert Baker, respectively. The title of his doctoral dissertation was The Organ Works of Olivier Messiaen and Their Importance In His Total Oeuvre, a volume which remains one of the foremost monographs concerning this music. During this extensive study he worked with the composer on several occasions, examined his works at the organ of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Paris and performed under his supervision. As a Fulbright Scholar at the Amsterdam Conservatory, he has worked with Gustav Leonhardt in the study of organ, harpsichord and chamber music.

Dr. Holloway began his teaching career in 1965 as the youngest member of the faculty of the Indiana University School of Music. In 1977, he joined the faculty of The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University where, in addition to establishing the organ program, he has served as Chairman of the Keyboard Department and Director of Graduate Studies. Dr. Holloway’s students have been particularly successful as teacher, church musicians, recitalists and recording artists. As Organist and Choirmaster of Christ Church Cathedral in Houston for many years, he directed one of the prominent church music programs in the country. In June of 1993, he was named Honorary Lay Canon and Organist and Choirmaster Emeritus.

Renowned as a gifted pedagogue, Dr. Holloway has served on the Committee for Professional Education of the American Guild of Organists and has addressed two biennial conferences of the National Conference on Organ Pedagogy, founded in 1982. He is in demand as a leader of workshops, master classes and as an adjudicator for competitions. He has served as a member of the jury for numerous competitions including the Concours de Europe, the Fort Wayne Competition, The Music Teachers National Association Competition, the National Young Artists Competition of The American Guild of Organists and the Grand Prix de Chatres. In 1994 he was invited to perform for the Bicentennial Festival of the celebrated Clicquot organ in the Cathedral of Poitiers, France, and to serve as a member of the jury for the international competition held at the end of the ten-day festival.

† 2014.  He was 77 years old.

Paul Goussot is “titulaire” of the famous Dom Bedos organ at the medieval Abbey of St-Croix in Bordeaux. He recently won first prize for improvisation at the 26th International Organ Festival in Saint Albans, in the United Kingdom. Born in 1984 in Bordeaux, Paul Goussot’s organ playing career took off at the age of 16, when he entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris where he first studied the harpsichord and basse-continue with Olivier Baumont and Blandine Rannou.

He began studying the organ in earnest with Michel Bouvard and Olivier Latry and received further tuition in harmony, counterpoint, fugue, improvisation and teaching skills from Jean Claude Reynaud, Jean-Baptiste Courtois, Thierry Escaich, Philippe Lefebvre and Jean-Francois Zygel. He graduated front the Conservatoire National and gained numerons first prizes, including two teaching diplomas that qualified him as professor of harpsichord and organ studies. Paul is a prize winner of various international organ competitions, namely at the “Musica Antica” festival in Bruges (Belgium), at St-Maurice (Switzerland) and in 2007 he won first prize for improvisation at an international organ festival in Luxembourg.

Both through his exceptional virtuoso and remarkable versatility, he has enjoyed a highly successful career as a young international concert organist. Highlights include several trips to the United States, notably New Orleans, Lafayette, Denton and Columbus. In 2009, as part of a joint programme between the Cathedral Basilica in New Orleans and the Paris Conservatoire, he was named “First Young Artist” in residence at the cathedral of saint Louis, in New Orleans. During that period he gave concerts in the state of Louisiane, culminating in a joint performance with the Louisiane Philharmonie Orchestra.

Paul Goussot’s improvisational skill plays an essentiel role in his artistic pursuits. It is an art form that he applies with great dexterity to silent films, particularly Carl Dreyer ‘s ‘Passion of Jeanne d’Arc’, which received high acclaim in New Orleans. He enjoys improvising with other artists and has appeared with Olivier Latry in Notre Dame in 2010. A harpsichord professor at the Conservatoire in Chaville, and organ professor at the Conservatoire in Rueil-Malmaison, he teaches regularly with Louis Robilliard at the Academie of Granville, whilst conducting malter classes in the art of improvisation both in France and abroad.

Paul GOUSSOT – Chartres 2012

Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier 1921–1999

An outstanding organist in her own right, Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier’s life and career were inseparably linked with those of her husband, the distinguished composer-organist Maurice Duruflé. Precociously musical as a child, she grew up in the South of France, studying at the Avignon Conservatoire, and becoming cathedral organist of Saint-Véran, Cavaillon at the amazingly early age of eleven. Not until after the Second World War and the German occupation were conditions suitable for her to continue her organ studies, with the legendary Marcel Dupré at the Paris Conservatoire, where she graduated with a premier prix.

In 1953 she married Maurice Duruflé, joining him as co-organist of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, a magnificent Renaissance church in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Despite an almost twenty-year age gap between them and a marked difference in temperament – he morose and self-doubting, she a lively, outgoing personality – they nevertheless formed an excellent unanimous partnership. One also thinks of Yvonne Loriod and Olivier Messiaen, but, sadly, Madame Duruflé came too late to be her husband’s compositional muse, his main output having been completed by 1947. But she did become a leading interpreter of his organ works, which they recorded jointly; and she played the important organ part in the celebrated recording of the Requiem for Erato which he himself conducted.

Undoubtedly, the chill cultural climate of the postwar years would have been extremely bleak for him without her revitalising presence; indeed, the latter part of their seemingly idyllic existence was clouded with misfortunes. For them both, the 1962 Vatican II ‘reforms’ were nothing short of a disaster, effectively undermining the Gregorian tradition from which they derived their defining source of musical inspiration. Worse still was an appalling motor accident in 1975, while returning from a recital in South-East France, in which he sustained two broken legs and she serious internal injuries. While this signalled the end of his active life, she recovered sufficiently to take over at Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, and act as nurse to her invalid husband.

After his death in June 1986, Madame Duruflé continued to live in the apartment in the historic Place du Panthéon; although restricted by her injuries, she remained characteristically outgoing, always ready to encourage the younger generation.

http://www.france-orgue.fr/durufle/

Stefan Schmidt was born in 1966 in Düsseldorf, studied Catholic Church Music at the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in his home town (organ under Prof. Paul Heuser). In 1991 he received his A Diploma degree, followed by further organ study at the Musikhochschule of the Saar, in the organ class of Daniel Roth (Paris). In 1993 he was awarded with the Concert Certificate.

From 1991 to 2004 Stefan Schmidt has been Kantor of the Church of St. Peter in Diisseldorf. He has been at the head of an organ performance course at the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule there since 1994.

He has already been a jury member for various international organ competitions. In addition, in 1989 he founded the Diisseldorf vocal ensemble »Ars Cantandi«, of which he was conductor until 2005. In 2005 he has been appointed organist of the cathedral of Würzburg.

Stefan SCHMIDT – Chartres 2013

http://www.stefan-schmidt-organist.de/

Tomasz Adam Nowak, first studied at the Frederic Chopin Academy of his Warsaw. He completed his studies there in 1987 with honors in the fields of organ and organ improvisation. He supplemented his training with Franz Lehrndorfer in Munich, Marie-Claire Alain in Paris and Ewald Kooiman in Amsterdam. He also studied church music at the Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen. He is laureate of many international organ competitions, including winning at the Haarlem Improvisation Competition.

Concerts, radio and audio recordings have taken Tomasz Adam Nowak to Europe and overseas. His artistic work is focused on the organ works of J. S. Bach (several recordings already and has begun recording a complete set), the works of Max Reger, the music of the organ movement and the avant-garde and the art of improvisation.

Tomasz Adam Nowak is Professor of artistic organ playing and improvisation at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold and 1st organist of the Stadt- und Marktkirche St. Lamberti in Münster. The direction of master-classes in Europe and the USA, acting as a juror at international competitions and co-operation with various symphony orchestras in Germany and abroad as well as the Artistic Director of the International Organ Festival in Westfalen-Lippe complements his artistic work.

Tomasz Adam NOWAK – Chartres 2013

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Nowak-Tomasz-Adam.htm

As a privileged pupil of famous organists such as Suzanne Chaisemartin, François-Henri Houbart and Marie-Claire Alain, Bruno Morin was awarded a Gold Medal and Price of Excellence at unanimity upon completion of his conservatoire studies. Two additional years at the Conservatoire National de Region with Marie-Claire Alain allowed him to widen his repertoire.

Winner of the Grand Prix of Interpretation of the International Organ Competition of Chartres at 25, Bruno Morin has been performing since in Europe, USA and South America.

Thanks to his wide musical education, Bruno Morin not only distinguishes himself in recital but also in his recordings from Boyvin, Lully, Bach or Haendel to Schumann, Brahms, Reubke, Widor, Vierne or Fleury. His recordings on legendary instruments such as Cavaille Colls in Saint-Sulpice in Paris, Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, Francois-Henri Cliquot in Poitiers cathedral as soloist or with orchestra gathered high praises from the press and audience around Europe.

Together with Marie-Claire Alain, Olivier Vernet and Frédéric Rivoal, Bruno Morin participated to the first recording of the Organ Concertos for 2, 3 and 4 keyboards of J. S. Bach. He has also recorded the Concerto for Organ and Orchestra of Francis Poulenc.

Winner of the Fondation pour la Vocation Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet and the Fondation Charles Oulmont, Bruno Morin is also involved in the organ patrimony preservation in the region of Seine-Maritime, France.

Bruno MORIN – Chartres 2011

http://bruno-morin-orgue.com/

Born in 1985 in Tokyo, Mari Mihara begins hie studies of piano at the age of five and begins the organ with M Kazuo Kohno at the age of 13.

In 2002 she is admitted in the university of Tohoku Gakuin in the class of Mrs Naoko Imaï, then integrates the university of the Arts of Tokyo in 2004 where she works in the department of organ with Rie Hiroe (who obtained Grand Prix of Chartres in 1998). Holder in 2008 of the licence of organ summa cum lande in 2008 of the University of the Arts, she obtains the Prize ‘Ataka” and the Prize ‘Acanthus’.

From 2009 she perfects in academies and Master’s classes with the French organists Michel Bouvard, François Espinasse, Éric Lebrun, Olivier Latry, Christophe Mantoux .

In 2011 she obtains her Master’s degree in Tokyo, and since she follows the teaching of Erwan Le Prado to the Conservatoire of Caen.

In 2012 Mari Mihara wins Grand Prix of Interpretation of the international competition of organ of Chartres. As winner of that competition Marl Mihara gives a lot of concerts in the world.

Mari MIHARA – Chartres 2013