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Jean-Charles Gaston Ablitzer (born 5 August 1946) is a French organist and pedagogue who specialises in music and organs of the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
Ablitzer was born in Grandvillars in the Territoire de Belfort, a department in which he has lived in for almost all of his life. Initially self-taught, he later studied with Pierre Vidal at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg. Since 1971 he has been the organist of Belfort Cathedral, with its historical Valtrin/Callinet/Schwenkedel organ officially classed as a Monument historique. From 1971 until 2007 he was also professor of organ at the Belfort conservatory. As such, he initiated in Belfort and its environs the construction of three organs of very different styles: [1]
This has turned Belfort and the Territoire de Belfort, which has romantic instruments as well, into an ideal place to teach the organ.
His interest in historical instruments of the northern type, which led him to Germany (including East Germany before die Wende, which he regularly visited between 1976 and 1984), culminated in his efforts on behalf of the reconstruction of the organ David Beck built for the chapel of Gröningen castle in 1596 and on behalf of the restoration of its case; at present this organ is in Saint Martin's in Halberstadt. It was he who alerted the authorities to the deplorable state of this remarkable instrument, described by its one-time organist Michael Praetorius in his Syntagma Musicum. He is still among the driving forces behind "Organum Gruningense Redivivum", the action group campaigning for the restoration of the Beck organ, although he is now its honorary president.
The music of Praetorius is particularly important for Jean-Charles Ablitzer. In 2005 he recorded Praetorius's complete organ works on the Hans Scherer organ in St Stephen's in Tangermünde (published by Alpha in 2008). On the Compenius organ in the Frederiksborg Palace, he also recorded a cd entitled Auch auff Orgeln with transcriptions for organ (by himself as well as by others) of vocal and instrumental music by Praetorius (Musique et mémoire productions). In 2006 he even made a slide show of a trip he made that took him In the Footsteps of Michael Praetorius to Wolfenbüttel, Halberstadt, Gröningen and Creuzburg, Praetorius's native city.
In addition to the complete organ works of Praetorius, Ablitzer's discography includes those of Buxtehude, Brahms and Pablo Bruna (all on Harmonic Records), as well as works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Böhm, François Couperin, Jean-François Dandrieu, and others.
He has performed as a soloist all over France, where festivals like the Festival d'Avignon, Toulouse les Orgues, Musique et Mémoire (in Faucogney-et-la-Mer), and the international piano Festival de La Roque-d'Anthéron (which accommodates organists and harpsichordists besides pianists) have invited him. He has also played in numerous European countries, including Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, and Italy; in Denmark he participated in the celebrations around the 400th anniversary of the Compenius organ (1610–2010) in Frederiksborg. His concert tours have also taken him to Japan.
Ablitzer has worked with singers including Catalan baritone Josep Cabré and has been a continuo player with ensembles like Gérard Lesne's Il Seminario Musicale, in which he played continuo for fifteen years.
Among the numerous radio and television broadcasts featuring Jean-Charles Ablitzer, his regular invitations to France Musique's Organo pleno programs deserve special mention.
Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers was a French organist, composer and theorist. His first livre d'orgue is the earliest surviving published collection with traditional French organ school forms. Nivers's other music is less known; however, his treatises on Gregorian chant and basso continuo are still considered important sources on 17th century liturgical music and performance practice.
Olivier Jean-Claude Latry is a French organist, improviser, and composer. He currently serves as professor of organ at the Conservatoire de Paris alongside Thomas Ospital.
Jean Victor Arthur Guillou was a French composer, organist, pianist, and pedagogue. Titular Organist at Saint Eustache in Paris, from 1963 to 2015, he was widely known as a composer of instrumental and vocal music focused on the organ, as an improviser, and as an adviser to organ builders. For several decades he held regular master classes in Zurich and in Paris.
André Jean-Marie Isoir was a French organist and pedagogue.
Dong-Ill Shin won first prize in the national competition for piano sponsored by The Korea Times at the age of ten. When he was eleven he made his debut with the Pusan Philharmonic Orchestra playing Mozart's Concerto in d minor No. 20. Attracted by J.S. Bach's Music and the orchestra-like colors produced by the organ, he began his studies with Dr. Sun-woo Cho at the age of 14. Later at Yonsei University in Seoul he studied with Dr. Tong-soon Kwak and completed his Bachelor of Music degree in 1997. He then studied in France with Jean Boyer and received the Diplome Nationale Superieur de Musique from the Conservatoire Nationale Superieur de Musique de Lyon in Organ, Harmony, Fugue, Analysis, Improvisation & Basso-Continuo. His dissertation at the Conservatoire was on the study of Tabulatura Nava by Samuel Scheidt which focused on J.P. Sweelinck's influences. His studies continued with Olivier Latry and Michel Bouvard at the Conservatoire Nationale Superieur de Musique de Paris in the prestigious Cycle de Perfectionnement program, which is the highest program in the French National Conservatory system. He also undertook private studies with Mme. Marie-Claire Alain for Organ and Mme. Françoise Marmim for Harpsichord. During his years of study in France he won several scholarships including awards from the Darazzi Foundation, the Meyer Foundation and Mécèn de Société Générale. In 2004 he completed his Artist Diploma at The Boston Conservatory on a full scholarship studying with James David Christie.
Édouard Commette was an organist from Lyon in France of international fame who served the Archdiocese of Lyon and was organist at Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière for over 50 years.
Jean-Pierre Leguay is a French organist, composer and improviser. He studied with André Marchal, Gaston Litaize, Rolande Falcinelli (organ), Simone Plé-Caussade (counterpoint), and Olivier Messiaen (composition), before serving as titular organist at Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Paris from 1961 to 1984. In 1985 he was named a titular organist at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, alongside Olivier Latry, Yves Devernay and Philippe Lefebvre.
Syntagma Musicum (1614-1620) is a musical treatise in three volumes by the German composer, organist, and music theorist Michael Praetorius. It was published in Wittenberg and Wolfenbüttel. It is one of the most commonly used research sources for seventeenth-century music theory and performance practice The second volume, De Organographia, illustrates and describes musical instruments and their use; this volume in particular became a valuable guide for research and reconstruction of early instruments in the twentieth century, and thus an integral part of the early music revival. Though never published, Praetorius intended a fourth volume on musical composition.
Jean Henri Marcel Boyer was a French organist and a professor of organ at several institutions including the Conservatoire national supérieur musique et danse de Lyon.
Jean-Luc Perrot is a French organist, carilloneur, composer and musicologist.
Norbert Stéphane Jean-Marie Dufourcq was a French organist, music educator, musicologist and musicographer.
Guillaume Lasceux was a French organist, improviser and composer.
Jean-Baptiste Nôtre was a French composer and organist.
Denis Comtet is a French organist, pianist, choral conductor and conductor.
Thierry Mechler is a French organist and organ and improvisation teacher at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. He teaches future concert students and gives international masterclasses for students of improvisation, piano and organ playing.
Francis Jacob is a French organist and harpsichordist.
Jean-Patrice Brosse was a French harpsichordist and organist.
Nicolas-Joseph Wackenthaler was a French organist and composer.
Pascal Vigneron is a French classical musician, both trumpeter, organist, and conductor.
François Xavier Darasse was a French organist, musicologist, composer, and pedagogue. The Toulouse les Orgues festival organise the International Xavier Darasse Organ Competition every three years in his honour.
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