News
November 2008
2nd INTERNATIONAL ORGAN COMPETITION – COLLON ORGAN – ST. MARIEN STIFT BERG, HERFORD (GERMANY)
(from the press release)
http://www.hochschule-herford.de/html/orgelwettbewerb.html
The 2nd International Organ Competition took place at the Patrick Collon organ in St. Marien Stift Berg in Herford (Germany). The competition started on 3 November with 16 young organists coming from 7 different nations and proceeded through the second and third round until 9 November, ending with the winners’ concert.
There was a preselection at the end of summer in form of a qualification round. The competition was structured by a second and the final round concerning the literature playing section; there was also an improvisation competition. The competition ended with the winner’s concert, where the audience chose its own winner. The winners were proclaimed by the jury only at the end of the concert. No 1st prize was assigned by the jury.
The winners are:
–Felix Marangoni (Italy) – 2nd prize
–Johannes Lang (Germany) and
Maxim Polijakowskij (Russia) – 3rd prize each one
–Johannes Lang – public prize
The winner of the improvisation prize is Sebastian Küchler Blessing from Baden-Württemberg.
The jury consisted of: Professor Michael Radulescu (Austria, chairman), Martin Böcker (Germany), Professor Hans Ola Ericsson (Sweden), Professor Dr. Helmut Fleinghaus (Germany), KMD Jörg Neithardt (Germany), Professor Bernhard Klapprott (Germany), Professor Jacques van Oortmerssen (the Netherlands).
The competition was organized by the Dieter Ernstmeier Foundation in cooperation with the Church of St. Marien and the Hochschule für Kirchenmusik in Herford. The foundation is dedicated to the entrepreneur Dieter Ernstmeier (1939 - 2002), who was involved in various areas around culture promotion of his hometown. He donated a second large organ to St. Marien, which was inaugurated in 2004. The first organ competition took place in 2006. The organ builder, Patrick Collon, Brussels, built the instrument after baroque models. The aim of the competition is to promote the demand of young organists for a stylistically oriented interpretation of baroque organ music, particularly from Italy, Spain, France, Flanders and southern Germany as well as from Johann Sebastian Bach. The competition focused on baroque organ music as well as music from 20. and 21. century, which can be well performed on this instrument.
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September 10th, 2007
INTERNATIONAL ORGAN COMPETITION IN LÜBECK (GERMANY)
The twentynine-year-old Italian Felix Marangoni won the final of the "Ist International Buxtehude Competition" in Lübeck, North Germany.
Through the performance of some of the greatest works of Buxtehude, Tunder and Bach he convinced the eight worldwide famous jurors, J.D. Christie (USA), H.O. Ericsson (Sweden), A. Gast (Germany), J.W. Jansen (France), L. Lohmann (Germany), J. Tuma (Czech Republic), J.C. Zehnder (Switzerland), W. Zerer (Germany), to confer him the 2nd prize. No first prize was assigned.
The competition took place from september 1st - 7th within the "Lübeck celebrates Buxtehude" Festival, on the occasion of the great composer’s three-hundred death anniversary. It is well known that in 1706, Johann Sebastian Bach made his famous journey on foot from Arnstadt to hear Buxtehude play.
Twenty candidates have been preselected from the numerous competition-applications coming from all over the world (Europe, Canada, United States and Russia). All the three rounds took place in St. Jakobi’s Church and the Cathedral on four organs of considerable artistic and cultural interest. At St. Jakobi, besides the mighty Stellwagen organ (1636/37) presumably played by the great Buxtehude in person, the candidates performed also at the Richborn meantone positive organ (1673) and in the Cathedral at the Italian positive organ (Baggio di Rosa, 1777) as well as the modern Marcussen & Sohn (1970) one. A part of the second round was the execution - in author’s presence - of the composition “Estampie” specially written by F. Danksagmüller. for the competition. The final round consisted of a concert of about an hour by each of the five finalists and was open to the press and to the public.
http://www.mh-luebeck.de/index.php?id=orgelwettbewerb&L=4