2020 France & Spain Study Tour

Regrettably, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this 2020 study tour has been canceled.

13 Days exploring the vibrant musical heritage of Southern France & Mallorca

In June 2020, members of Boston Organ Studio will travel to Southern France and the Spanish island of Mallorca to explore this region’s rich and vibrant pipe organ landscape. Through visits to influential and historic instruments, the repertoire we study will be enhanced and our knowledge increased. In masterclasses with leaders in our field, our perspectives on performance will be broadened.

Beginning in the region around Toulouse, we will visit some of the most important instruments in Europe — including the famous (and newly-restored) 1888 Cavaillé-Coll organ in the Basilica of St-Sernin in Toulouse, together with its resident organist, Professor Michel Bouvard. Nearby, we will encounter the rich sounds of the 1880 Puget organ in Notre-Dame du Taur, the silvery tones of the Ahrend organ in the Musée des Augustins, and the stellar French Baroque instrument in St-Pierre des Chartreux. Our repertoire by composers across generations and styles — Widor, Franck, Bach, Grigny, Marchand — will find new life in the sounds of these instruments.

Continuing to Provence, we will spend an entire day at the incredible 1774 Isnard organ in St-Maximin, whose Résonance division houses some of the most thrilling reed sounds in all of Europe. We then finish our trip on the Spanish island of Mallorca, where organs are visually and aurally defined by their many ranks of horizontal reeds — and where the great organ builder Jordi Bosch (1739–1801) lived and developed his hugely influential innovations in organ building. Given American organists rarely engage the music of the Spanish Baroque, this last portion of the trip will be particularly enlightening, as we learn new repertoire and hear it in authentic settings.

Through it all, we will grow as musicians, scholars, and colleagues. Thank you for your support of this experience!