As promised in my last post, here is a summary of the organ festival in St. Laurenzen church, on the quadraphonic “surround” organ. I let you imagine the sound based on the images 🙂 There are also a few interviews I made of the guests of the festival. Warning: this is a looong post with lots of pictures.
It opened on Sunday, September 1st, with Bernhard Ruchti’s stunning performance of Franz Liszt’s “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam.” He first gave a presentation of the work as a pre-concert talk, then the first concert of the festival.
In preparation of the concert, I interviewed Bernard Ruchti about the concert.
The interview can be seen here, it is in English with German subtitles: https://youtu.be/mTs8SghuFus?si=FsDTR7X4GjkD2qNA.
On Wednesday, September 4, the vocal ensemble Amarcord (from Leipzig) performed a Noon concert with the organist Daniel Beilschmidt (also from Leipzig). There was more vocal than organ, but it was a good concert.
On Thursday, September 5, in the evening, the organ factor Simon Hebeisen and the organist Bernhard Ruchti gave a presentation of the instrument.
After the presentation, I was asked to film the dress rehearsal of a theatre, dance and music version of “The Oval Portrait” by Edgar Allan Poe, that will be played two days later, narrated and directed by Christian Hettkamp, danced by Wassilissa Serafin and Jaro Neuschwander, and with Bernhard Ruchti at the organ. The church was full of colourful lights. More pictures the day of the show.
On Friday, September 6, Bernhard Ruchti and I have performed our French-chansons program (Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, Charles Trenet). There were also related texts read by the St. Laurenzen pastoress Kathrin Bolt and the actor Philipp Kamm. It was a memorable night, with a standing ovation.
We are already planning our next performance together in March. More to come soon.
Before the concert, we reversed the roles, I was interviewed by Manuela Brunner:
Here is the link to the interview, in French, with subtitles in French, English and German: https://youtu.be/zwizIgBsRlE?si=fN1G6zj-uoVHSRzR.
On Saturday, September 7, there was a long evening at St. Laurenzen church for the Night of the Museums (Museumsnacht), from 6 pm to midnight. There were first three performances of “The Oval Portrait.” The first picture is the rehearsal before the doors opening.
And then a concert of the Lido Boys, so that we can all dance to conclude the night with a party. Someone captured this moment on the dance floor 🙂
On Sunday, September 8, one of the best guests of the history of the festival performed in the evening: the organist of St. Sulpice Church in Paris, Sophie-VĂ©ronique Cauchefer-Choplin. She is not only a fantastic performer, she is also an extraordinary improvisator. She improvised on three famous Swiss songs that Bernhard wrote down for her. Everybody was enchanted. The pictures at the end show Bernhard, Sophie-VĂ©ronique, and Simon the organ builder. We also had a great dinner at a restaurant just across the church. Sophie-VĂ©ronique and her husband Dominique were nice with everybody and had a good time.
I also interviewed Sophie-VĂ©ronique.
The interview is in French subtitled in German: https://youtu.be/u2Q-fZoy5c0?si=c1UYD_UVM0L1gcHg.
One week that went really fast and was full of events! Two days to rest, and then we started again.
On Wednesday, September 11, the pianist Arta Arnicane and the organist Simon Menges performed together, the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Sergei Rachmaninoff, for a Noon concert.
On Friday, September 13, we heard the St. Gallen Cathedral organist Christoph Schönfelder play at the end of the afternoon, with texts read by Deborah Weber.
On Sunday, September 15, the final concert of the festival was performed by Jonathan Scott, the British organist, known for his duo with his brother Tom, pianist. They are known as the Scott Brothers Duo (have a look at their social media channels and their very active YouTube channel!). And this was another fantastic concert! Jonathan introduced it by saying that none of the works on his repertoire were organ works. He arranged a rich variety of musics and composers to build a custom-made concert very suitable for the surround organ. He gave his introduction in German.
I also interviewed him before the concert.
The interview is in English with German subtitles: https://youtu.be/pjsxElIVR80?si=TzncedXccnDKk8if.
The brothers also did their own video of the experience. The two first minutes are about the concert they made just before St. Laurenzen, but the whole video (14 min) is worth watching if you want to have an idea of this very special instrument: https://youtu.be/kYLPH15hn7E?si=XEgdGBp9hHmoRT9A.
They also announced that they recorded a special video on the Laurenzen organ that will be published soon on their YouTube channel.
Et voilĂ . This marks the end of the festival. I hope that you enjoyed this summary in image and in videos. But no worries, I am sure that there will be other photos and videos in this church very soon.
I am now getting used to my life in St. Gallen. I have moved in a residence in which a lot of students live, so I have made new friends, some of which are PhD students at Universität St.Gallen (HSG). I now have an office I can use in one of the university buildings. My focus is now on my dissertation. Wish me happy writing 🙂