Imagine having a symphony hall with a giant concert organ and hiring a professional to represent and promote it. As Roy Thomson Hall’s organ collects dust, not fingerprints, Montrealers are planning on making a big to-do with their new King of Instruments.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
I received an email today with a call for applications for an organist in residence from the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. It is planing to inaugurate Casavant organ Op. 3900 in May 2014 at the new Maison symphonique.
The instrument will have four manuals (keyboards) and 6,489 pipes divided up into 116 ranks. From the specifications, my guess is the cost must be close to $3 million. The instrument, paid for by a member of the Desmarais family, is being named after a former general manager of the Montreal Symphony, Pierre Béique.
Montreal Symphony’s organist in residence will play in concert with the orchestra and will also be expected to organise and perform solo concerts, tours and educational outreach programmes.
Even though the Organist Emeritus at the Montreal Symphony is Parisian Olivier Latry, the new organist in residence will have to be a Canadian citizen proficient in both official languages and, according to the job description for the two-year, half-time contract, available anytime, day or evening.
As far as I know, neither the Toronto Symphony nor Roy Thomson hall has ever had a curator or organist in residence to care for the Gabriel Kney organ Op. 95, which also has four manuals and 102 ranks of pipes.
Sir Andrew Davis, music director of the Toronto Symphony at the time the organ was specified, built and inaugurated, played it quite a bit himself and made a CD of organ music before he left town in 1988.
American organist Carlo Curley, who died just a few months ago, fell in love with the organ and Roy Thomson Hall and made a couple of recordings there. He offered to become an organist in residence if the Corporation of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall would provide him with an apartment in Toronto.
According to then board president John Lawson, the organization never seriously entertained the offer.
Roy Thomson Hall held weekly organ recitals in the decade after the building opened, but found that there simply wasn’t enough of an audience to keep the series going.
For the last several years, the Edwards Charitable Foundation has provided money for a small series of free lunchtime concerts every season. Coincidentally, the second of this season’s four concerts was at noon today, featuring organist William O’Meara and the Victoria Scholars Men’s Choral Ensemble.
The next one is worth circling on the calendar: Noel Edison and the Mendelssohn Singers will perform with organist Rachel Mahon on Monday, April 8 at noon.
For more information on the series, click here.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
