Madeira Organ Festival 2019

The 10th Madeira Organ Festival takes place in a special year of celebrations of the history of the Madeira Archipelago and, for this reason, presents itself with a program dedicated to "Six Centuries of Organ Music" inviting you to a musical journey through the centuries and the organistic heritage existing in the Region.

It is a Festival that has already been acknowledged as having a prominent place on the international cultural stage, and is also a reference in terms of tourism and culture in Madeira, due to the quality and uniqueness of its program and its great involvement with the community, reinforcing its closeness to the public and, consequently, its affirmation.

Between October 18 and 27, we will be holding 11 concerts in different churches and convents in the municipalities of Funchal, Machico, Ponta do Sol and Porto Santo, on historic organs where we will once again hear the "voice" of this instrument with diversified programs from the 15th to the 21st century, which will certainly provide unrepeatable musical moments, highlighting new compositions and works that will be presented for the first time.

The main goal of the Madeira Organ Festival is the promotion of the organ heritage in the Region and the realization of unique concerts that simultaneously promote the built heritage of religious character where these instruments are found, and foster, among the resident and visiting public, the interest in a different musical genre, valuing the richness and diversity of the sound of the king of instruments in a historical context and heritage appreciation.

Being an initiative of the Regional Secretariat of Tourism and Culture, the Madeira Organ Festival has the particularity of being an aggregator project, of people and institutions, which results from several synergies and collaborative processes that involve and mobilize different public and private entities. I am very grateful for the collaboration that has been maintained with the Diocese of Funchal and the total availability of all the Churches involved. I also acknowledge the dedication and professionalism of Professor João Vaz, artistic director of the Madeira Organ Festival, who over these ten years has persistently valued the organistic heritage of the Autonomous Region of Madeira, making this Festival a unique reference on the national and European scene.

- Eduardo Jesus -
Regional Secretary for Tourism and Culture

Ten years of the Madeira Organ Festival

The Madeira Organ Festival reaches this year its tenth edition. The conclusion of this ten-year cycle - a milestone that so many cultural projects, from the north to the south of the country, have failed to reach - would, in itself, deserve a commemoration and a special program. The coincidence with the celebration of the six hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the islands of Porto Santo and Madeira gives the 10th Madeira Organ Festival - under the theme "six centuries of organ music", as in 2018 - an exceptional dimension.

In line with previous editions, this year's festival will present Madeira's organ heritage, betting on the diversity of formations and repertoires: From solo recitals to concerts with symphony orchestra; from artists of international projection performing for the first time in the Region, to young national performers who find in this event a space to promote their careers; from some of the oldest works for organ, to the music of our days (including the premiere of pieces written especially for this occasion) and improvisation - that art so rooted in the organistic tradition that is, for its real-time compositional quality, a true paradigm of contemporaneity.

Madeira has a diverse organistic heritage (between new instruments and historical organs of various origins) and it was a consistent policy of safeguarding and promoting this heritage, started in the late 1990s, with the restoration of the organ of the Cathedral of Funchal, which made possible the realization of this festival from 2010 and kept it alive until now. Since its first edition in 2010, one of the main concerns of the Madeira Organ Festival has been to include in its program all the organs in the region in operation, regardless of their size or date of construction.

At the end of this tenth edition, more than fifty organists from sixteen countries will have performed, among them leading figures such as Olivier Latry, Ludger Lohmann, Michel Bouvard, Martin Haselböck, José Luis González Uriol, Lorenzo Ghielmi, Catalina Vicens or Stephen Tharp. More than a hundred concerts were given in the churches of the municipalities of Funchal, Machico, Ponta do Sol, Porto da Cruz and Porto Santo, including solo recitals, concerts with orchestra, or even shows where the organ appears in a less obvious context: jazz, cinema, literature, corporal expression. Various sectors of society will have been involved, from the official institutions to the Church, the press, musicians, and an audience of many thousands of people, including Madeirans and national and foreign visitors. All this will have affirmed the Madeira Organ Festival as the most significant organ event in the whole country. Above all, we will have defended and promoted the organ heritage of Madeira, placing it definitively in the international organistic landscape.

- João Vaz -
Artistic Director