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Fascinating Instrument, Spectacular Settings

Competitions

Finals at the 2023 Longwood Gardens international Organ Competition 

Few people in the old world still know about the sheer incredible piano and organ boom at the beginning of the last century. During the 1920s and 1930s, interest in organs (secular organs, not church instruments) peaked in the United States, driven by the instrument´s unique ability to place a symphonic palette at the disposition of a single musician, as well as by the fascination with roll-operated automation. Until the advent of loud speakers, it was a common sight to find organs not just in concert halls and churches but equally present in theatres, cinemas, museums, hotel lobbies, private residences, and department stores.

One such instrument is the Longwood Organ, a 1930 Aeolian organ weighing in at 55 tons and boosting 10.010 pipes divided into 146 ranks with two blowers, eight shade motors, 12 tremolos, 16 shut-off valves, 117 stop actions, 1.009 offset note actions, 3600 magnets and miles of electrical wiring. The pipes are controlled by approximately 23.000 valves.

Adding to its fame and prominence, the organ is housed in a 1929 gilded ballroom inmidst 1100 acres of botanical gardens: Longwood Gardens, one of the great gardens of the world, has become a major tourist attraction and continues to fascinate people from all over the world.

 

Bryan Anderson, the winner of the competition

The Longwood Gardens Ballroom with the organ

The 2023 Jury together with Thomas Warner, Director, and Emily Moody, Associate Director of Performing Arts at Longwood Gardens

Longwood Gardens

Prizes:

First Prize: Bryan Anderson (30)

Second Prize: Colin MacKnight (29)

Third Prize: Ádám Tabajdi (30)

Audience Prize: Colin MacKnight (29)

Jury:

Simon Johnson (Chair), Peter Richard Conte, Helmut Deutsch, Isabelle Demers, Shin-Young Lee, Thomas Ospital

 

In a clear and convincing decision, the jury of the 2023 Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition awarded First Prize and a cash award of USD 40.000 to Bryan Anderson, 30, currently Director of Music at Saint Thomas Episcopal Church and School at Houston. Anderson had previously won Second Prize (at the 2019 Longwood Competition) as well as Third Prize at the 2021 Canadian Organ Competition in Montreal.

Outstanding among his repertoire in the final was his own transcription of the overture to “La Forza del Destino”, superbly performed with great musicality, perfect technique and fascinating use of the instruments countless colours and shades of sound.

Second Prize and Audience Prize went to Colin MacKnight, 29, a Juilliard Graduate and currently Director of Music at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock, Arkansas. His repertoire choices in the final included Charles Ives´Variations on “America”, La Cathédrale engloutie by Debussy and La Valse by Ravel, the latter one a definitive highlight of the final.

Out of 67 applications, 10 competitors were selected to perform at Longwood Gardens in Kenneth Square, Pennsylvania. Each of them spent two weeks at the competition- one entire week dedicated to practice and familiarisation with the instrument- a huge challenge for any organist. 

 

©WFIMC 2023