Kimmel Center Organ > Michael Barone
Michael Barone
Building upon a curiosity which began in his teens, Michael Barone has been involved with the pipe organ for more than 50 years. As host and senior executive producer of Pipedreams, he is recognized nationally for his outstanding contributions to the world of organ music. Pipedreams is the only nationally distributed weekly radio program exploring the art of the pipe organ. Michael’s talent and commitment have been recognized with numerous awards, including the American Guild of Organists President’s Award, the Distinguished Service Award of the Organ Historical Society and the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award.
Below are Michael's notes on each of the artists in the 2010/11 Kimmel Center Presents Organ Series.
Gunnar Idenstam
Sat, Nov 6, 3pm
A phenom from Finland, Gunnar Idenstam makes his Kimmel Center debut on the Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ, performing his own transcription of Debussy’s symphonic poem La mer. “One of the great organ artists of our time,” (Dalademokraten), Idenstam is known for his virtuosic improvisational skills, noted in 1984 when he won first prize in the prestigious “Grand Prix de
Chartres” in France. Idenstam has brought a fresh breeze to the organ scene with his colorful and iconoclastic style grounded in French tradition but also embracing folk and symphonic rock.
As an arranger, he has transcribed orchestral works by Mahler, Debussy, and Ravel, as well as popular music from “Riverdance” and traditional Swedish folk melodies. He regularly performs with leading musicians such as British composer and saxophone virtuoso Andy Sheppard and Laponian yoik artist and songwriter Sofia Jannok. His Verizon Hall recital also includes works by Rameau and Messiaen, a suite of dances from works by Bach, and an organ arrangement of Ravel’s Bolero.
Joan Lippincott
Sat, Feb 26, 3pm
Master recitalist and teacher, Joan Lippincott, also appears in her Kimmel Center debut in a classic "organ masterworks" program that includes Bach’s monumental Passacaglia in C (BWV 582) and Liszt’s Prelude & Fugue on B-A-C-H (arguably the first post-Bach virtuoso organ composition). Ms. Lippincott is something of a high-priestess of the organ art in the United States. A product of the Curtis Institute, and herself the teacher of hundreds of now prominent students during her years of teaching at Westminster Choir College, Lippincott has performed on the most prominent contemporary and historic organs throughout Europe, and has built an extensive discography that includes the major works of Bach, of whose music she is regarded as a specialist, having performed a series of eight highly acclaimed “Bach in the Big Apple” concerts in New York, among other locales.
An organ virtuoso distinguished for her dazzling musicianship and technical skill, she will also play Mozart’s incredible Fantasy in F-minor (K. 608), the riveting and passionate Trois Danses by Frenchman Jehan Alain (one of the most significant 20th century scores for the instrument and honoring the centenary of Alain’s birth on February 3, 1911), plus shorter works by American composers Ned Rorem (another Curtis alum) and Aaron Copland (the popular Fanfare for the Common Man, which showcases the many powerful trumpet registers on the Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ).
Thierry Escaich
Sat, Apr 16, 3pm
Composer, “improviser of genius” (The Diapason), recitalist and teacher, Thierry Escaich, has established himself as one of France’s most accomplished contemporary voices. Verizon Hall audiences were thrilled by his Organ Concerto, which Escaich performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2008.
For this Organ Series program, part of the Kimmel Center’s Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA), Escaich will collaborate with actress and director Emmanuelle Delpech-Ramey in a musical and theatrical re-creation of Paris in the period from 1910 to 1920. Remember Paris also includes video designer Gilles Boustani’s inventive projections of historic images and dreamlike re-imaginings of the city of lights. A man and a woman, played by two silent actors, poignantly transport audiences back to a Paris embodied by decadence and eroticism, by artistic daring and the devastations of war.
