NIIOC 2023 PRIZES & CLOSING DATE ANNOUNCED.
NORTHERN IRELAND INTERNATIONAL ORGAN COMPETITION 2023 ANNOUNCES PRIZES AND CLOSING DATE FOR ENTRIES
Details have been announced of the monetary awards and prizewinners’ recitals for this year’s Northern Ireland International Organ Competition (NIIOC), taking place in Armagh 21–23 August 2023.
The Senior Category, for post-Grade 8 players aged 22 and under, takes place on Monday 21 August 2pm–10pm in St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, Armagh. Twelve organists selected by MP3 recordings will perform 20-minute recitals which must include a work by J S Bach. They will compete for a First Prize of £2,000 (increased by £500 since 2021); Second Prize of £1,000 (also increased by £500); Third Prize of £500 (increased by £250); the Dame Gillian Weir Medal plus £300 (increased by £100) for the standout performance of a single piece by any composer; and the Bach Prize of £300 for the best Bach performance.
Prizewinners’ recitals in this category will be arranged at venues including Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York; Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral and St George’s Church, Hanover Square, in London; Trinity College, Cambridge; New College, Oxford; Manchester, Glasgow and Galway Cathedrals; St Michael’s Church, Dun Laoghaire, and the Portico of Ards, Northern Ireland. Further European recitals will be announced next month.
All competitors in this category will have their performances professionally recorded on the day and made available to them at a later date. Each competitor will also receive personal feedback from the jury on their performance on Tuesday 22 August.
The Intermediate Category, for players of Grades 6-8 standard who have not yet gained an organ diploma, takes place on Tuesday 22 August at 1.30pm, also in St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral. There is a free choice of repertoire for recitals which must consist of two or three pieces, lasting in total no more than 12 minutes.
Performers compete for a First Prize of £500, Second Prize of £300 and Third Prize of £200.
The Junior Category, for players of Grades 4-5 standard, takes place on Tuesday 22 August at 10 am in St Malachy’s Church, Armagh. There is a free choice of repertoire for recitals which must consist of two or three pieces, lasting in total no more than eight minutes. Performers compete for a First Prize of £300, Second Prize of £200 and Third Prize of £100.
The closing date for entries for all three categories is Friday 21 July 2023 at 12 noon.
As previously announced, the competition jury will be chaired by the Canadian organist Isabelle Demers, who has an international reputation as a recitalist and recording artist and is associate professor of organ at McGill University, Montréal. She will be joined by regular jury member David Hill, artistic director of the Bach Choir, London, the Yale Schola Cantorum, Connecticut and of the Charles Wood Summer School, which runs concurrently with the organ competition.
Isabelle Demers will lead a Masterclass on Tuesday 22 August 6.30pm, St. Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, Armagh and an Organist Workshop on Performance Etiquette and Presentation on Wednesday 23 August 11am, First Armagh Presbyterian Church. Both events are open to the public, as are the competition performances.
For this year only the upper age limit for NIIOC entrants has been extended to 22, because of the disruption to the competition schedules caused by Covid-19. In future years the age limit will return to 21.
For more information contact the competition organisers by email info@niioc.com
Facebook / NorthernIrelandInternationalOrganCompetition
Twitter / @NIIOC1
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NOTES FOR EDITORS
The Northern Ireland International Organ Competition was established in 2011 to provide talented young organists, aged 21 and under, with major recital engagements, financial support and recording opportunities. It is now recognised as the world’s leading international competition for young organists and is officially partnered with the St. Albans International Organ Festival.
Since NIIOC began recital venues have included St. Thomas Fifth Avenue New York, Westminster Abbey, Southwark Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral Dublin, St. Columb’s Cathedral Londonderry, Trinity College Cambridge, Canongate Kirk Edinburgh, St. Peter Mancroft Norwich, St. Peter’s Cathedral Belfast, Worcester Cathedral and St. Michael's Cornhill London. International jurors have included Thierry Mechler (France), Kimberly Marshall (USA), Mattias Wager (Sweden), Frédéric Blanc (France), Erwan le Prado (France) and Martin Jean (USA).
The Competition Board is chaired by Richard Yarr.
The Dame Gillian Weir Medal, created by the Belfast School of Art at Ulster University, was commissioned by NIIOC in 2018 to celebrate the exceptional work of our Patron Dame Gillian Weir both as a musician and educator. It will be awarded by the jury, on behalf of Dame Gillian, for the performance of a single work which they consider the most outstanding in the Senior category.
Isabelle Demers has enraptured critics, presenters, and audience members around the globe with playing described as having “bracing virtuosity” (Chicago Classical Review) and being “fearless and extraordinary” (Amarillo-Globe News), She has appeared in recital throughout Europe, Oman, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada. Highlights include performances at the Maison Symphonique (Montreal, Québec), the Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg, Germany), City Hall (Stockholm, Sweden), the Forbidden City Concert Hall (Beijing, China), and St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey (London, UK). Dr Demers is in continual high demand by her colleagues as witnessed by performances for numerous regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Institute of Organ Builders and International Society of Organbuilders, the Royal Canadian College of Organists, and the Organ Historical Society. She has released three CD recordings on the Acis and Pro Organo labels. In 2018, she appeared as solo organ accompanist in an Acis recording of Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem with the Baylor University Choir, recorded at Duruflé’s church in Paris. A native of Québec and a doctoral graduate of the Juilliard School, Dr Demers is Associate Professor of Organ at McGill University (Montréal, Québec). She was formerly the Joyce Bowden Chair in Organ and Head of the Organ Program at Baylor University (Waco, Texas).
Daniel Moult is Head of Organ at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where he directs the highly-acclaimed organ department and has spearheaded the commissioning of three significant new organs. He teaches and leads masterclasses, workshops and courses around the world. Daniel has published several editions, including the Easy Bach and the Easy Handel albums for Bärenreiter.
Daniel’s innovative approach to the promotion of organ music has seen him present and perform in a range of films, of which the most recent is The English Organ, the largest film project ever made about the instrument, with a crowdfunded budget of £200,000. It provides a detailed history of English organ-building. Daniel performs twelve hours of music from Tudor times to the present, spanning 500 years of repertoire and filmed in 33 locations in the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand.
Previous film work includes Virtuoso! Music for Organ, a film featuring some of the most demanding organ repertoire of the twentieth-century, and The Elusive English Organ, a journey through English organ music from Byrd to Wesley. He has also made several CDs, including the first solo recording of the newly-restored organ of Arundel Cathedral, and one of Handel's organ concerti with the London Early Opera Orchestra for the Signum Classics release Handel at Vauxhall.
As a soloist, Daniel has performed at major venues and festivals in the UK, Europe, Asia and Australia as well as concerti appearances in various countries. Born in Manchester and now based in London, Daniel studied at Oxford University and the Amsterdam Conservatorium.
David Hill, Artistic Director of the Bach Choir, London and Yale Schola Cantorum, former Chief Conductor of the BBC Singers and former Organist and Director of Music of Westminster Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral and St John’s College Cambridge, is a patron of the competition and has been a jury member every year since its inception. The other patrons are Mark Duley, Organist of St Nicholas Cathedral, Galway; James O’Donnell, Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey; and Dame Gillian Weir.
Partners include the Charles Wood Festival and Summer School, Armagh (which runs concurrently with the organ competition); the Arts Council of Northern Ireland; and St Albans International Organ Festival.