"The famous French organist invites the audience for a unique evening. He revives the unique traditions of organ accompaniment to silent films, an art that died out eighty years ago. He will accompany Rupert Julian’s 1925 horror film The Phantom of the Opera House with an improvised accompaniment on organ.This is easy for him, since Thierry Escaich is a world renowned organist and composer who is able to combine these two profiles in a unique manner through improvisation. He loves cinema and has won over many audiences with his piano and organ improvisations, but he was also commissioned by the Louvre to write accompanying music for Franz Borzage’s 1927 silent film, which won three Oscars, Seventh Heaven.
He completed his studies in 1990 at the Paris Conservatoire where he graduated cum laude in eight (!) disciplines – harmony, counterpoint, fugue, organ playing, improvisation, analysis, composition, orchestration. He then won the Florence Blumenthal Foundation prize with his compositions, the composition jury including Elliot Carter and Henri Dutilleux. His orchestral works are played by leading European orchestras while his vocal and chamber music works are performed by such distinguished ensembles as the BBC Singers, A Sei Voci and the Wanderer Trio.
In 1997, he was appointed organist of the Paris St-Etienne-du-Mont church where one of his predecessors was the great Maurice Duruflé, and he is a representative of the great French organ tradition of improvisation. The French journal Diapason, referring to the colour and inventiveness of his improvisation and playing named him one of the most marvellous chameleons of his age group. The infallibility of his art, the lightness of his playing as well as an imagination that knows no bounds have all led critics to describe him many times as a genius.
Tickets: 5600,- 4500,- 3100,- 2200,- HUF"
Source:
Palace of Arts
18.09.2007