External links
- Official website
- Filsell playing Prologue et Noël varié on YouTube, by Pierre Pincemaille at Washington Cathedral
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Jeremy Filsell | |
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| Born | 10 April 1964 |
| Nationality | English |
| Education | Keble College |
| Occupation | Musician |
Jeremy Daniell Filsell (born 10 April 1964) is an English pianist, organist and composer who has served as director of music at Saint Thomas Church in New York City since 2019. [1] It was announced in January 2025 that he will step down from that role in the summer of 2025. [2]
Having played piano and organ from a young age, Filsell was a student at Stivichall Primary School and Blue Coat Church of England School in Coventry. [3] He was a Limpus prize winner for the Royal College of Organists examination, which he took when he was 19, and a silver medalist of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. He studied music at Oxford University, where he was an organ scholar at Keble College, studying with Nicolas Kynaston and Daniel Roth. He went on to study piano with David Parkhouse and Hilary McNamara at the Royal College of Music and Martin Hughes at the University of Surrey. He won second prize in the 1993 St Albans International Organ Competition. [1]
He has particular interest in English piano music and French organ music. He plays in a piano trio with Oliver Lewis, violin, and Neil Heyde, cello, and a piano duo with Francis Pott.
He has performed as a piano soloist around the world, and recorded in solo and concerto repertoire for Radio 3. He has been a repetiteur for John Eliot Gardiner, Vernon Handley and Sir Charles Groves. From 1989 to 1991 he was pianist of the European Contemporary Music Ensemble. He has recorded little-known piano music by Eugene Goossens, Herbert Howells, Carl Johann Eschmann, and Bernard Stevens, and the piano and organ sonatas of Julius Reubke.
He performed the complete organ works of Marcel Dupré in London in 1998, over nine weekly recitals at St Peter's Church, Eaton Square. [4] He recorded the same works over a two-week period in September of the same year, on 12 CDs. [5] [6] He completed a Ph.D. thesis on contextual, analytical and aesthetic issues in the music of Marcel Dupré, at Birmingham Conservatoire/University of Central England. [7] In 2021, Filsell performed Dupré's complete organ works, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the composer's death, in a concert series at Saint Thomas Church in New York, where Dupré himself once played and recorded some of his works. [8]
He has made original transcriptions for organ of orchestral works (such as Paul Dukas's The Sorcerer's Apprentice ) and transcribed the improvisations of Pierre Cochereau as recorded at Notre-Dame de Paris. [9] These are published by Editions Chantraine, Belgium.
He has made a complete recording of the six Organ Symphonies of Louis Vierne on the 1890 Cavaillé-Coll organ in Abbatiale Saint-Ouen, Rouen, and the organ music of Arthur Wills and Francis Pott, amongst many others. [10]
Until 2008 he was lecturer in academic studies at the Royal Academy of Music, visiting tutor in organ studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, [11] taught at Eton College and was a countertenor lay clerk in the choir of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. Previously he was assistant organist at Ely Cathedral, director of music at St Luke's, Chelsea, and assistant director of music at St Peter's Church, Eaton Square, both in London. He has taught masterclasses in performance and interpretation on the Henry Wood and Oundle International Summer Schools, Eton Choral Courses, and in the U.S. at Yale University and Utah State University.
From 2008 to 2009, Filsell was principal organist of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He then directed the music at Old St Paul's Episcopal Church, Baltimore, [12] and in 2010 became artist-in-residence at Washington National Cathedral, where he performed Olivier Messiaen's work La Nativité du Seigneur on 18 December 2011.
In 2019 he succeeded Daniel Hyde as director of music at Saint Thomas Church, New York City. [1] [13] In January 2025 it was announced that he will step down from the role in the summer of 2025. [2] [14]
Filsell is married to Rebecca Kellerman-Filsell, [15] a mezzo-soprano who also teaches at Saint Thomas Choir School [16] and directs the children's parish choir at Saint Thomas Church. [17]
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Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer. As the organist of Notre-Dame de Paris from 1900 until his death, he focused on organ music, including six organ symphonies and a Messe solennelle for choir and two organs. He toured Europe and the United States as a concert organist. His students included Nadia Boulanger and Maurice Duruflé.
Marcel Jean-Jules Dupré was a French organist, composer, and pedagogue.
John Gavin Scott was an English organist and choirmaster who reached the highest levels of his profession on both sides of the Atlantic. He directed the Choir of St Paul's Cathedral in London from 1990 to 2004. He then directed the Choir of Men and Boys of Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City until his death at age 59. Whilst training countless young musicians, he maintained an active career as an international concert performer and recording artist, and was acclaimed as "the premier English organist of his generation".
Pierre Eugène Charles Cochereau was a French organist, improviser, composer, and pedagogue.
Saint Thomas Choir School is an all-boys boarding school located in Manhattan, New York, dedicated to the education and training of approximately 30 choirboys from ages 8 to 14. It is one of three all-boarding, all-boys choral schools in the world.
David John Briggs is an English organist and composer.
Joan Lippincott is an American concert organist and former head of the organ department at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey.
Michael Murray was an American-born organist and writer.
Gerre Edward Hancock was an American organist, improviser, and composer. Hancock was Professor of Organ and Sacred Music at the University of Texas at Austin. He died of cardiac arrest in Austin, Texas, on Saturday, January 21, 2012.
Max Kenworthy has performed recitals throughout the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand and has undertaken recordings, broadcasts and tours in pipe organ, piano and conducting.
Frederick Lewis Swann was an American church and concert organist, choral conductor, composer, and president of the American Guild of Organists. His extensive discography includes both solo organ works and choral ensembles he has conducted.
Francis John Dolben Pott is a British composer, pianist and academic.
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists. In addition, an organist may accompany congregational hymn-singing and play liturgical music.
Alexander Russell (1880–1953) was an American composer, organist and the first Frick Professor of Music for Princeton University. He is most remembered today as the long time organ impresario for the Wanamaker Department Stores.
Stephen J. Tharp is an American organist and composer.
Jeanne Marie-Madeleine Duruflé was a French organist. Regarded as the last of the French school of organists, she played works by Widor, Vierne, Langlais, Dupré and her husband, Maurice Duruflé. She and her husband were both organists at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris, and toured internationally, especially in the U.S..
Francesca Massey is the former Organist and Director of Music at Rochester Cathedral, a position she held from September 2019 to August 2022, when she was succeeded by Adrian Bawtree. Previously she was Sub-Organist at Durham Cathedral from 2011. In addition to being a professional Church/Concert Organist, Massey is actively engaged as a Choral Conductor, Pianist, Organ and Music Teacher both privately and on behalf of Durham University, Oundle for Organists and the RSCM.
Victor Togni was a Swiss Canadian organist, improviser, composer, and teacher. His compositions received positive reception. He won first prize at the American Guild of Organists' Improvisation Competition on June 26, 1964.
Gereon Krahforst is a German composer, concert organist, pianist, harpsichordist, and church musician.
Clarence Everett Watters FAGO MMus was an American organist, choirmaster and teacher who specialized in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach as well as 19th and 20th century French composers such as Marcel Dupré, with whom he had studied in France. He directed the music department at Trinity College, Hartford, in Connecticut from 1932 to 1967 and was also a visiting professor of organ at Yale University.
