Every Thursday from 30th September to 28th October 2010 at 7.00 p.m. there will be the annual season of “Organ Concerts” in the church of St. Saviour in Jerusalem, organized by the “Magnificat” Institute of Music of the Custody of the Holy Land. The characteristic of this season is that it brings together concert performers of international fame with young musicians at the debut of their career, but who have already collected successes and have been highly appreciated at festivals and concerts in Europe and Israel.
This is the case of Alberto Barbetta, 23 years old, who last year graduated from the “A. Pedrollo” Conservatoire of Vicenza and in 2009 was awarded the “Prix du President” at the international organ competition of Saint-Pierre-lès-Nemours in France. The young Barbetta was entrusted with the inaugural concert on 30th September which he will open - as is proper – with J.S. Bach and then leap forward to modern and contemporary music with no less challenging compositions by Bossi, Duruflé and Vierne.
The concert of 7th October will feature the Alexei Shmitov: there is an age and career difference of exactly thirty years between difference between the Russian and Barbetta. The name of Shmitov evokes the harmonies and timbres of the great Russian school which grew up in the conservatoire of Moscow. Shmitov will also begin his concert with a tribute to Bach and then approach the modern and contemporary panorama with pieces by Franck and Widor; as he his also a composer, the public will have the interesting opportunity to hear the “Ciaccona Pasquale” (Cachona Paschali) and the “Small prelude with small lyrical fugue” performed by its composer.
On Thursday 14th October, the season will present another gem of its collection: the German (or rather, Prussian, as he proudly boasts) Prof. Oskar Gottlieb Blarr from Düsseldorf, where he was choirmaster (Kirchenmusiker) of the Neanderkirche from 1961 to 1999. Thirty-eight years of public service to music explain better than any other piece of information the prestige Maestro Blarr enjoys, especially in Germany where the chief organist of a church is certainly more famous and appreciated than the mayor of the city.
As well as a musician and teacher, Oskar Blarr is also a composer; we can mention only the sacred oratorio “Jesus-Passion”, a composition synthesizing Western and Jewish musical traditions. The programme that Blarr will be presenting in the church of St. Saviour could be recorded as an anthology of the history of music for organ: sixteen pieces from the twelfth century to today, including a very curious and interesting “Holy Tango” of his composition.
The thirty-year-old Alexander Kellarev will not have to catch a plane to offer his bravura at the organ to the public of this musical season on Thursday 21st October: he comes from Haifa, the city where he grew up musically and where he has given a number of concerts at the Hecht Auditorium. He knows the road to Jerusalem very well, as to specialize he has been regularly coming to the “Magnificat” Institute of Music since 2009, under the guidance of the maestro Armando Pierucci, head of the school and organist of the Holy Sepulchre, and who formerly taught organ at the Conservatoire of Pesaro, the city of birth of Gioacchino Rossini (some of his former students now teach in Italian Conservatoires). The programme is completely “based on Bach”, including a Toccata and fugue in D minor, but which is not the very well known one used as a soundtrack to films and advertisements (which, let’s admit, we are tired of) but the less well known BWV 538 “Dorica”: for this choice, Kellarev already deserves applause.
The closing concert on Thursday 28th October will be given by Roman Krasnovsky, who has also been at home in Israel (he teaches piano at the Conservatoire of Carmiel) since 1990, when he immigrated from Ukraine where he was born in 1955. He began to study the organ when he already had a brilliant career as a pianist and harpsichordist. By professional choice, Krasnovsky decided to concentrate his efforts on performance rather than composition until, deeply affected by the assassination of Rabin in 1995, he wanted to dedicate a lamentation for organ to the statesman (“Mourning Izhak Rabin”) which was then followed by other pieces, including the two that he will play at St. Saviour, together with music by Reubke and, of course, J.S. Bach.
Lastly, mention must be made of the most important of the protagonists, in other words, the new Rieger organ in the church of St. Saviour, which was inaugurated in April 2008.
FRC
This is the case of Alberto Barbetta, 23 years old, who last year graduated from the “A. Pedrollo” Conservatoire of Vicenza and in 2009 was awarded the “Prix du President” at the international organ competition of Saint-Pierre-lès-Nemours in France. The young Barbetta was entrusted with the inaugural concert on 30th September which he will open - as is proper – with J.S. Bach and then leap forward to modern and contemporary music with no less challenging compositions by Bossi, Duruflé and Vierne.
The concert of 7th October will feature the Alexei Shmitov: there is an age and career difference of exactly thirty years between difference between the Russian and Barbetta. The name of Shmitov evokes the harmonies and timbres of the great Russian school which grew up in the conservatoire of Moscow. Shmitov will also begin his concert with a tribute to Bach and then approach the modern and contemporary panorama with pieces by Franck and Widor; as he his also a composer, the public will have the interesting opportunity to hear the “Ciaccona Pasquale” (Cachona Paschali) and the “Small prelude with small lyrical fugue” performed by its composer.
On Thursday 14th October, the season will present another gem of its collection: the German (or rather, Prussian, as he proudly boasts) Prof. Oskar Gottlieb Blarr from Düsseldorf, where he was choirmaster (Kirchenmusiker) of the Neanderkirche from 1961 to 1999. Thirty-eight years of public service to music explain better than any other piece of information the prestige Maestro Blarr enjoys, especially in Germany where the chief organist of a church is certainly more famous and appreciated than the mayor of the city.
As well as a musician and teacher, Oskar Blarr is also a composer; we can mention only the sacred oratorio “Jesus-Passion”, a composition synthesizing Western and Jewish musical traditions. The programme that Blarr will be presenting in the church of St. Saviour could be recorded as an anthology of the history of music for organ: sixteen pieces from the twelfth century to today, including a very curious and interesting “Holy Tango” of his composition.
The thirty-year-old Alexander Kellarev will not have to catch a plane to offer his bravura at the organ to the public of this musical season on Thursday 21st October: he comes from Haifa, the city where he grew up musically and where he has given a number of concerts at the Hecht Auditorium. He knows the road to Jerusalem very well, as to specialize he has been regularly coming to the “Magnificat” Institute of Music since 2009, under the guidance of the maestro Armando Pierucci, head of the school and organist of the Holy Sepulchre, and who formerly taught organ at the Conservatoire of Pesaro, the city of birth of Gioacchino Rossini (some of his former students now teach in Italian Conservatoires). The programme is completely “based on Bach”, including a Toccata and fugue in D minor, but which is not the very well known one used as a soundtrack to films and advertisements (which, let’s admit, we are tired of) but the less well known BWV 538 “Dorica”: for this choice, Kellarev already deserves applause.
The closing concert on Thursday 28th October will be given by Roman Krasnovsky, who has also been at home in Israel (he teaches piano at the Conservatoire of Carmiel) since 1990, when he immigrated from Ukraine where he was born in 1955. He began to study the organ when he already had a brilliant career as a pianist and harpsichordist. By professional choice, Krasnovsky decided to concentrate his efforts on performance rather than composition until, deeply affected by the assassination of Rabin in 1995, he wanted to dedicate a lamentation for organ to the statesman (“Mourning Izhak Rabin”) which was then followed by other pieces, including the two that he will play at St. Saviour, together with music by Reubke and, of course, J.S. Bach.
Lastly, mention must be made of the most important of the protagonists, in other words, the new Rieger organ in the church of St. Saviour, which was inaugurated in April 2008.
FRC