The Royal Canadian College Of Organists’ Summer Organ Academy wrapped up on July 19 with a concert that showcased the participants. For a week, 18 students (a full complement) benefited from one-on-one instruction, masterclasses, and practice time at a number of churches in Toronto.
For many of the young musicians, it was a chance to connect as well as to learn, and take valuable insights from instructors Anne Laver, Aaron Tan, John Paul Farahat, Jonathan Oldengarm, and David Simon, along with guest lecturers Aaron James, Kathleen Allan, and Ben Dobyns. (The latter was also one of the participants.)
RCCO Summer Organ Academy Participants
LvT talked to a few of the participants to ask about their involvement with the instrument, and the Summer Organ Academy.
“I came to Toronto to study music from India,” explains Anindyo Das. He studied piano and harpsichord, and the pipe organ’s versatility struck him as remarkable. “It’s as if I was singing,” he says, describing the feeling of playing before a church congregation.
“We are playing what is essentially a big machine,” Das adds. “You can do so many things.” As he notes, every organ, even if equipped with similar stops, sounds different because of the differing environments they are housed in.
Ashley Tenbrinke is a native of Calgary, Alberta. “I’ve kind of always had an interest,” she says of her involvement with the pipe organ. She’s been playing the piano since the age of 6, and the pipe organ since the age of 16, and since then, she’s seen an uptick in interest in the instrument. That’s not the situation she started with. “I didn’t know anybody around my own age,” she says.
The week long Summer Organ Academy is a chance to get together with likeminded people in her own age group. “I really love it,” Ashley says.
Carl Christiansson comes to the Summer Academy all the way from Stockholm, Sweden. He began playing the pipe organ about three years ago after studying piano to a bachelor’s degree. His initial ambition was to become a répétiteur in the field of opera.
“By accident, I discovered the organ,” Carl says. It was a teacher who persuaded him to move beyond the piano to synthesizers, and then the pipe organ. He agrees that there’s an increased interest in the instrument over the last few years. “I think there’s really a trend,” he says.
He describes a situation in Sweden where the official separation of church and state occurred in 2000, and had a ripple effect of discouraging involvement in the church, and by extension playing the pipe organ, for about a generation. As a result, there are several hundred organist’s positions that will be opening up within the next few years as an older generation retires.
“I got a job in one month,” Christiansson says, “from going from a desperate pianist trying to stay alive every month.” He appreciates the opportunity to bump up his skills at the Summer Organ Academy. “For me, it’s been super important.”
Like many of the other participants, Burnaby BC native Ben Dobyns came to the pipe organ incidentally.
“Accidentally,” he says. “I was trained as a jazz pianist,” he says. “I got pulled in as an untrained organist right out of college.” He began playing at a church, but had another career in mind. Ben spent about two decades working in the film industry. At the end of that period, he was getting frustrated with the roller coaster nature of that business, and made the switch to full-time musician in 2021. That’s when his involvement with the Royal Canadian College of Organists began, and he’s now the Director of Marketing for the organization, as well as a participant in the Summer Organ Academy.
“I finally get to learn how to play the instrument,” he jokes. The week-long Academy is just the place to do that. “It’s incredibly valuable, because it’s the opportunity to laser focus,” he says. He mentions also the benefits of learning from multiple teachers. “Now, I have a year’s worth of work from one week of lessons,” he says.
As a board member of the RCCO, he’s seen a rise in interest in the instrument overall. “I think it is becoming more popular,” he says. He mentions the uber-popular Interstellar tour by organist Roger Sayer, which saw diverse, multi-generational audiences sell out the concert series across Canada. Outside the formal context of the church, music lovers are enthusiastic about discovering the pipe organ and its capabilities.
“I think our job is to create those opportunities,” Ben says.
Luca Morresi is a Toronto native. “I go to St. Michael’s Choir School,” he says. There, the organ is a big part of music programming, and he began to play the instrument there in about grade six. “It’s a pretty rare opportunity,” he says.
The intensive is a networking opportunity as well. “I wanted to come here because I wanted to see other people who play organ and who are passionate about it,” Luca explains.
Elias McWalter comes from Saskatoon, SK, and got into the pipe organ by happenstance. “It kind of fell into my lap,” he says. He explains that his father began attending church, and brought him along to a concert where the organist performed with a cellist.
“I was kind of hanging around [afterwards],” he says.
He was already a piano player, and after a little conversation, he was allowed to experiment on the organ — with the stops and volume turned low. As he played a piece by CPE Bach, however, the other musicians began to open up the stops and encourage him. “I had three or four people offering lessons,” he says.
Meeting other people his own age at the Summer Academy is important. “There’s a very small community in Saskatoon,” Elias says. Getting one-on-one instruction is another major perk.
He reports that membership in RCCO Saskatoon has doubled in the last few years. “I think I’m part of that growing interest [in the pipe organ],” he laughs.
Sarah Svendsen, Artistic Director
In her position as AD of the Summer Organ Academy, Sarah Svendsen has definitely noticed a growing interest in the pipe organ. “I think there’s been a strong uptick because of some social media influencers,” she says. People like Anna Lapwood have raised the instrument’s profile among a whole new generation of music lovers.
At the RCCO, she says they accept organists of all kinds, church related or not. “We focus on playing skills, community.”
Across Canada, she says that access to organ education is a major issue, and many organists are limited to part-time careers. “Many people are looking for immersive opportunities,” she says. “One of the challenges we face is access to instruments.”
She notes that the RCCO is grateful to all the church sponsors who give them access to those instruments for educational efforts at a discounted rate. With the full complement of 13 participants in the Organ Academy this year, to deliver the full programming, which includes masterclasses, lessons, and practice time, takes up about 72 hours of organ access per day.
Final Thoughts: The Concert
The week-long intensive ended with a concert at the Rosedale United Church in Toronto’s leafy north end neighbourhood. Thirteen of the participants performed;
- Carl Christiansson of Stockholm, Sweden;
- Elias McWalter of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan;
- Aaron Zhang of Missisauga, Ontario;
- Adelene Honner of Toronto, Ontario;
- J.C. Coolen of Ajax, Ontario;
- Anindyo Das of Toronto, Ontario;
- Llewellyn Davidson of Halifax, Nova Scotia;
- Erik Kreem of Toronto, Ontario;
- Tobias Amankwah of Toronto, Ontario;
- Ashley Tenbrinke of Calgary, Alberta;
- Maximilian Wilcznyski of Edmonton, Alberta;
- Lucas Morresi of Toronto, Ontario;
- Ben Dobyns of Burnaby, British Columbia.
The concert showcased an impressive baseline of skills among the participants, two of whom were under the age of 18.
The repertoire performed showcased the versatile range of expression that the venerable instrument is capable of, from the dynamic modernist expression of Max Reger’s Toccata, Op. 59: 5, performed with a nice sense of drama by Carl Christiansson, to the playful cinematic sensibility of Hans Zimmer’s Pirates of the Caribbean medley, brought to life by Ashley Tenbrinke.
The Baroque period was well represented by selections from Bach, Fasch, and Sweelinck. Llewellyn Davidson’s rendition of Messiaen’s Les Bergers was particularly striking, along with Maximilian Wilczynski’s performance of Mendelssohn’s Organ Sonata No. 4, Allegro con brio.
The bright, open space of the Rosedale United Church was a fitting setting for what was essentially an homage to the instrument.
- You can help support the RCCO and the next generation of organists with a donation [HERE].
Are you looking to promote an event? Have a news tip? Need to know the best events happening this weekend? Send us a note.
#LUDWIGVAN
Get the daily arts news straight to your inbox.