James David Christie
James David Christie is the Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Mass., and is Professor of Organ at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio. He has served as organist of the Boston Symphony since 1978. In August 2000 he was appointed Adjunct Professor of Organ at Boston University, and was a Visiting Professor at the Paris Conservatory and the Academy of Music, Krakow, Poland.
James David Christie has performed throughout the world in solo concerts and with major symphony and period instrument orchestras under such conductors as Kurt Masur, Klaus Tennstedt, Gunthur Schuller, Edo de Waart, Arthur Fiedler, Colin Davis, Andrew Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, Philippe Herreweghe, Roger Norrington and Trevor Pinnock, among many others. He has performed and recorded under Seiji Ozawa, Robert Craft, Andrew Parott, Christopher Hogwood and Joshua Rifkin, and premiered and championed major contemporary works by Anton Heiller, Daniel Pinkham, Thea Musgrave, Ellen Taafe Zwilich, George Crumb, Ned Rorem, Jean Langlais and P.D.Q. Bach (for the 100th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Pops with John Williams conducting).
Dame Gillian Weir
Through her unique career as an internationally acclaimed concert organist performing worldwide at the major festivals and with leading orchestras and conductors, Gillian Weir has become established as a distinguished musician known for her virtuosity and integrity, her reputation extending well beyond the world of the organ.
Dame Gillian’s career as recitalist and concerto soloist and recording artist continues to encompass the globe. Her repertoire is exceptional in its breadth and variety, stretching from the Renaissance to the many contemporary works she has premiered. Recent recital highlights have included performances at the spectacular Verizon Hall in Philadelphia and the new Esplanade Hall in Singapore, as well as the first full-scale recital for several decades at the Royal Albert Hall, to an audience of over 2000. Many of Gillian Weir’s new recordings are available on the Priory label in addition to performing, Gillian Weir is also in great demand as a teacher, clinician, and competition adjudicator. In 2008 she will be on the jury of the Canadian International Organ Competition, and in 2009 she will chair the jury of the Jordan International Organ Competition. She is often invited to teach as a guest artist at music schools in the United States and around the world. She maintains an ongoing relationship with the Peabody Conservatory as Visiting Artist-in-Residence, and in November 2008 Visiting Artist-in-Residence at Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music.
Maître Jean Guillou
Concert artist Jean Guillou has radically extented the technical limits of instrumental playing. As a composer, he has since his earliest years constructed and developed a singular musical world of great individuality. The last compositions he played in 2007, opus 69 and 70, are “La Révolte des Orgues, for 9 organs and percussion” and the “7th Organ Concerto,” for Organ and Orchestra, given in Padova and Milano (Italy). A manysided creator, Jean Guillou possesses a polyvalent musical and artistic personality. As a pianist, he revived the Piano Sonata of Julius Reubke, a pupil of Liszt, playing and recording the Piano and the Organ Sonatas. He taught at the Meisterkursus in Zürich between 1970 and 2005, but Jean Guillou is also the creator of a novel form of instrument construction. He was the designer, among other organs, of those of the Alpe d’Huez (France), the Chant d’Oiseaux (Brussels), the Conservatory of Naples, the Concerthall in Zürich and the Portuguese Church in Rome. This conception of the organ is moreover the key to his work, The Organ: Memory and Future, which has reached its third edition. This book evokes the whole history of the organ from the third century B.C. to a description of his own variable strucure organ. The book ends with a chapter on interpretation, on improvisation and creation in general.
To be considered for selection into one of the three masterclasses (Christie, Weir, Guillou), email Dr. Eschbach: Jesse.Eschbach@unt.edu and provide one recommendation from either a current or former teacher. There are three openings for each teacher. Repertoire should be appropriate to the particular historical period covered each day.
Participants selected to perform in class will be notified by early October.
Practice on the Wolff organ will probably be limited to 40' for each participant between 7-9am each morning of the conference.