Madeira Organ Festival 2017
From October 20 to 29, 2017 the eighth edition of the Organ Festival will be held in Madeira. This year with ten concerts and eight organists who will sound the music of the historical church organs in Funchal, Ponta do Sol and Machico.
The unique and inspiring atmosphere of Madeira's churches, with their sacred and worship spaces, creates the ideal setting to enjoy these instruments, providing a true ocean of sounds, resulting from the artistic competence of the organists and the diversity of instruments that, thanks to their peculiar characteristics, allow the presentation of a vast and captivating repertoire.
The Madeira Organ Festival offers an opportunity to listen to some of today's best organists with diversified programs that reveal various facets of the instrument. Solo recitals, programs of European and American music, Italian and Iberian music, organ and Alpine horn, organ and literature are some of the proposals that invite you to share a project of proximity, which aims to provide the listener the maximum direct and comprehensive range of the sound and color of our historic organs.
This is also how we build a cultural program that is also a quality reference for the tourists who visit us, demonstrating the importance of integrated actions of cultural programming in monuments of National Interest or Public Interest attesting to their relevance as strategic tourist/cultural resources. The cultural heritage has a value that expands far beyond the identity and symbolism. And in this context, the organs are unique marks of a past that is present, which is a generator of knowledge and best practices, re-founder of partnerships and shared projects, enhance the number of actors, public and private, committed to the enhancement of cultural heritage and the creation of a diverse and quality cultural offer.
The Madeira Organ Festival has been a territory of excellence for institutional cooperation. I am very grateful for the collaboration maintained with the Diocese of Funchal and the unfailing availability of all the Churches involved. To Master Organist Dinarte Machado for his attentive and dedicated eye, defender of the organistic landscape of Madeira. I also thank the dedication and professionalism of the staff of the Regional Directorate of Culture that for the second consecutive year and in an exemplary way, ensure the organization of this event produced exclusively with funds from the regional budget. To Professor João Vaz, artistic director of the Madeira Organ Festival, and the main responsible for the enthusiasm I dedicate to the knowledge and appreciation of Madeira's historical organs, I thank him in a very grateful way for all his effort and dedication to this project.
Natércia Xavier
Regional Director of Culture
VIII Organ Festival of Madeira
The Organ Festival of Madeira began in 2010, following a process of recovery and revitalization of the organ heritage of Madeira developed since the late 1990s by the Regional Government of Madeira. Throughout its seven editions, the event has brought to a large audience dozens of national and international artists, promoting a vast repertoire and presenting programs adapted to the characteristics of the different instruments existing in the Region.
In addition to showcasing the richness of the organ repertoire and heritage of Madeira, the Madeira Organ Festival sought to explore the different potentialities of the organ, showing not only its facet as a solo instrument, but also its potential as an integral element in various vocal or instrumental formations. Thus, along with recitals dedicated to central works in the history of organ music, programs with very unique formations and repertoires were presented.
This is the focus of the 8th Madeira Organ Festival's program. In the opening concert, Stephen Tharp presents works by American composers, almost always absent from European organ concert programs. William Whitehead, besides offering a recital dedicated to the English tradition, presents a selection from the Orgelbüchlein Project (an initiative that brings together the work of Bach and the production of contemporary composers). Other special features are the alpine horn and organ duo of Carlo Torlontano and Francesco di Lernia (the latter also presenting a program dedicated to Iberian and Italian music on the precious historical organ of Machico), the connection between organ and literature with Jan Willem Jansen and António Plácido, and the participation of Karol Mossakowski, who will improvise on the new Dinarte Machado organ of Funchal Cathedral the soundtrack of Carl Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.
Besides the already mentioned thematic recitals, the inescapable presence of Johann Sebastian Bach will be assured by Jan Willem Jansen in a concert with the Classical Orchestra of Madeira, conducted by Norberto Gomes, and the Portuguese composer Manuel Rodrigues Coelho will be the central figure of the closing concert with the young organist André Ferreira and the Ensemble São Tomás de Aquino.
A varied program that will provide the audience of the Madeira Organ Festival with an always new perspective of the organ music and the organistic heritage of the Autonomous Region of Madeira.
João Vaz
Artistic Director