Goteborg International Organ Academy...

[KB7DQH]

Merely days after conclusion of the events in Zurich, the GOArt folks conducted what is now becoming an annual rather than a biennial event 8) 8) 8)

http://www.organacademy.se/blog/2011/03/01/organ-academy-expands

The Organ Academy Expands!
published by Erik Bernskiöld on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 15:04

From the autumn of 2011, the Göteborg International Organ Academy will take on a new role to support new Masters Program in Göteborg. The Organ Academy will still be an international festival inviting all those interested in organ research, building and performance to a meeting place with concerts workshops and seminars. But now it will be annual, and the first Organ Academy in its new form will take place from 15-18 September under the theme "The British Organ in the Nineteenth Century".

Since 1994, there have been summer organ academies every other year in Göteborg. The Göteborg International Organ Academy has grown into a well-known meeting place for instrument builders, musicologists, teachers, performers, and students gathered around our shared love and appreciation for the art of the organ. These organ academies have been organized by the Göteborg Organ Art Center in cooperation with the Academy of Music and Drama, and made possible by the administration of a tirelessly working independent association of friends and supporters at GIOA (the Göteborg International Organ Academy Association)  with generous financial support from the City of Göteborg.  The Göteborg International Organ Academies have focused on the growing organ landscape of Göteborg, celebrating the inauguration of a new instrument or the restoration of a significant historical one every two years for the last decade and a half. The Organ Academy has been an important driving force in turning Göteborg into the treasured landscape of organ culture that it has become.

In 2011, GOArt and the Academy of Music and Drama are integrating, and there are already two concrete results of this new partnership. First we are pleased to announce that starting in the autumn of 2011, we are launching a new two-year masters program in organ performance and research.  In order to support this dynamic development in organ education, the Organ Academy will expand its role and become an annual event within the academic year.

The Organ Academy will still be an international festival inviting all those interested in organ research, building and performance to a meeting place with concerts workshops and seminars. But now it will be annual, and the first Organ Academy in its new form will take place from 15-18 September. "The British Organ in the Nineteenth Century" will celebrate the 1871 Father Henry Willis organ in Örgryte New Church, a three manual and pedal instrument with 31 stops and an original swell mechanism, as well as the newly restored Walker organ in Christ the King Catholic Church from 1907, with three manuals and pedal and 55 stops making it not only the newest but the largest addition to the Göteborg organ landscape in a decade. Our keynote speaker will be the internationally renowned organ scholar Peter Williams, and the festival will include concerts, masterclasses, and an English Evensong, as well as lectures with afternoon tea!  Plan to join us in "Little London" in Göteborg in September.

About the Academy

The Göteborg International Organ Academy is a festival, organized by the Göteborg International Organ Academy Association in cooperation with the City of Göteborg and GOArt and the Academy of Music and Drama at the University of Gothenburg. It was created in 1994 to provide a meeting place for everyone interested in the art of the organ to gather together to share and collect new knowledge, to find artistic inspiration and to enjoy great performances on the many instruments in Göteborg. The Academy is unique in bringing together students, teachers, instrument builders, scholars, performers and friends of the organ art to offer them an international forum for dialog and discussion within an inspiring and exciting Scandinavian environment.

The academy builds on the interdisciplinary research that has been carried out within GOArt's various research and instrument building projects since 1995, and provides a program that integrates current research at GOArt, the Academy of Music and Drama, and the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts at the University of Gothenburg.

The Academy has a broad organ and related keyboard instrument collection at its disposal, the highlight of which is the four-manual North German Baroque Organ in meantone temperament, built by GOArt within an interdisciplinary organ research program, but a number of other fine instruments have been added to Göteborg's organ landscape. 2011 marks the tenth Göteborg International Organ Academy.
Highlights from previous academies

    In 1994 we celebrated the installation of the first John Brombaugh organ in Europe, the meantone baroque organ installed in the Haga Church in 1992
    In 1996 the 1871 Willis organ, recently restored by Tostared, as well as the 1783 Schiörlin organ in Jonsered (partial restoration by Herwin Troje, 1991) were featured
    In 1998 we celebrated the installation of the new French symphonic organ built by Verschueren for the Academy of Music and Drama. We also visited the 1854 Marcussen organ in the Synagogue, newly restored by Karl Nelson
    In 2000 we celebrated the international inauguration of the research organ built by GOArt to explore the world of the great seventeenth-century organ builder Arp Schnitger
    In 2002 we celebrated the renovation carried out by Grönlunds of the 1909 Eskil Lundén organ in the Vasa Church
    In 2004 our focus was on the restoration of the 1861 Marcussen organ in the Haga Church carried out by Åkerman & Lund
    In 2006 the Marcussen/Magnusson organ in the German Church newly renovated by Tostareds was featured
    In 2007 the so-called Bjurum organ, built by Nicolaus Manderscheidt in 1650 (restored by Mads Kjersgaard in 1972-76) was featured
    In 2009 the newly built choir organ by Tostared in the Cathedral was featured
    In 2011 we will celebrate the Walker organ in Christ the King Catholic Church, restored by Tostared and installed in 2010

Should be plenty of time to plan for next year's event...

Eric
KB7DQH

[KB7DQH]

http://www.goart.gu.se/

Welcome to GOArt!

GOArt is a research center for interdisciplinary studies of the organ and related keyboard instruments, established in 1995 at the University of Gothenburg.

GOArt explores a research model that includes the dialectic among musician, music, instrument builder and instrument. GOArt has reconstructed organs and other keyboard instruments as a vital component of this model. This has generated new knowledge about historical building processes through the practice of and critical reflection on traditional crafts. The organbuilder Arp Schnitger (1648-1719) has been the focus of several important reconstructions, the latest of which was just inaugurated at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York (2011).

GOArt also led a team that reconstructed the 1776 A. G. Casparini organ in Vilnius for the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, New York (2008). GOArt publishes research reports, instrument documentations and databases, develops conservation methods for historical organs and supports education and development for the advancement of the organ art.

Eric
KB7DQH