- 2019 Bios
- Aaron James
- Alcée Chriss
- Alison Riseley-Clark
- Andrew Adair
- Christopher Dawes
- Christopher Reynolds
- David Baskeyfield
- Dudley Oakes
- Eric Hanbury & Ian Sadler Organ Duo
- Gordon D. Mansell with Tamara Hrycak
- Ian Grundy
- Imre Olah
- InSpirations Ensemble
- Mark Himmelman
- Matthew Whitfield
- Michael Bloss
- Michael Capon
- Nicholas Capozzoli with ORGANIX FESTIVAL BRASS ENSEMBLE
- Organized Crime Duo
- Rachel Mahon
- Richard Spotts
- Sarah Svendsen
- Simon Irving with Janice Beninger (Four Hands, Two Feet Duo)
- Stefani Bedin
- The Dundas Trio featuring John Laing with Lara Housez and Fernando Lima
- Thomas Fitches
- Xaver Varnus
- Zoe Kai Wai Lei
2019 Bios
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CHRISTOPHER DAWES’ musical life and ministry have spanned genres and institutions; ideas and ideals; playing for royalty and serving the homeless; serving and seeking in cathedrals, tiny churches, denominations, and their various worlds. He has given solo organ recitals and accompanied choral tours across North America and Europe, and been broadcast repeatedly on domestic and international radio services. His work appears on over two dozen commercial CDs to date and been showcased in Canada’s greatest concert halls and organ lofts. |
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Matthew is Organist & Director of Music at St. Thomas’s Anglican Church in Toronto. He received his musical training from York University, where he earned his BFA studying with Stephanie Martin, and the University of Toronto, where he received his MMus and worked with John Tuttle. While at the University of Toronto, Matthew performed in masterclasses with Canadian organists Ken Cowan and Isabelle Demers and won prizes in both National and Regional organ competitions. |
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Michael Capon serves as Music Director at St. George’s Anglican Cathedral in Kingston Ontario and is active as a performer, conductor, composer, and teacher. In addition to his church work, Michael has directed community choirs and orchestras, directed music for theatrical productions, taught music theory and organ students and adjudicated at music festivals and competitions. |
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Simon Irving with Janice Beninger (Four Hands, Two Feet Duo) Simon Irving and Janice Beninger began their husband/wife organ and piano collaboration as Four Hands Two Feet in 2012. They perform in a variety of venues in and around their home region of Hamilton, Ontario. Styles range from Baroque to modern, including works composed specifically for organ and piano, as well as their own arrangements and adaptations. |
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Alcée Chriss III is the winner of the 2017 Canadian International Organ Competition (Montreal). He is also the winner of the Firmin Swinnen Silver Medal at the Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition 2016, where Choir and Organ magazine wrote, “Chriss stole the show.” |
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Imre Olah was born in Hungary, where he studied music in Budapest, specializing in organ performance. His studies later involved specialization in choral music and choral direction. Since moving to Canada in 1989, Imre has served as music director and organist at many Churches. He has been part of the musical life in the city, presenting organ recitals and accompanying choirs and soloists. |
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MICHAEL BLOSS has developed a celebrated reputation for animated performances, sensitive collaborative playing, and illuminative coaching. In an enviable career of touring, performing and recording throughout the world, he was the first Canadian to be awarded the designation of Preisträger at the International Bach Competition in Leipzig, Germany playing in Bach’s own church. |
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Thomas Fitches received his training in Oshawa, Toronto, and Croydon, England, at the Royal School of Church Music. From1965 to 1973 he was the Assistant Organist at the Anglican Church of St. Simon the Apostle in Toronto. |
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The Dundas Trio featuring John Laing with Lara Housez and Fernando Lima The Dundas Trio was formed in 2016 by three renowned musicians of the Valley Town: Lara Housez (soprano), Fernando Lima (countertenor), and John Laing (keyboard). Their concerts have been greeted with much enthusiasm, and they look forward to performing at Organix 19. |
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Andrew Adair is Director of Music and Organist at Toronto’s historic Church of St. Mary Magdalene. He previously served as Associate Director of Music at St. James’s Cathedral, Toronto, and as Assistant Organist at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene. At St. James’s Cathedral he contributed regularly to the recital series, playing well over 100 programmes. Andrew studied at the University of Toronto with University Organist John Tuttle and has additionally received tuition from a number of international sources. |
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Mark D. Himmelman (b. 1978), a native of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Mark Himmelman began playing the organ at the young age of seven years and by age eight had played his first church service. At age eleven Mark began studies in piano and organ under David Zwicker. His teachers have also included Allen Wayte, F. Alan Ressor, and John Vandertuin. Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in music performance from the University of Prince Edward Island. |
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Organist Richard Spotts, a native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania and a graduate of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, has set out to perform and educate the public of this seminal work, with the ultimate goal of performing the complete fifteen-hour cycle in a recital series over a period of ten days. Mr. Spotts has given recitals at cathedrals, universities, and parishes throughout the United States and Canada and is writing a book on the subject. |
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Eric Hanbury & Ian Sadler Organ Duo Born in Windsor, Ontario, Eric received his early education in England. When the whole family returned to Canada in 1964 he started organ lessons with Dr. Charles Peaker at St. Paul’s Bloor Street. He attended the University of Toronto and continued organ studies with Douglas Bodle and John Tuttle. Eric had a thirty-three-year career as a Toronto high school teacher of Music (Band, Keyboard, and Vocal), and English. |
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Commended for his “masterful artistry” (The Diapason, 2019), David Baskeyfield has earned a reputation for creative programing, showcasing virtuoso facility tempered by intelligent interpretation, authoritative command of registration and informed above all by intuitive and communicative musicality.“ |
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Stefani Bedinis a solo and collaborative performer, liturgical musician, and pedagogue, active in her hometown of Toronto. In September 2017, Stefani began her pursuit of the Master of Music degree in organ performance at the University of Toronto, where she also obtained the Bachelor of Music degree (Honours) in music history and theory and a minor in the historical keyboard. She studies organ under the tutelage of Dr. Kevin Komisaruk. |
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Zoe Kai Wai Lei studies the Master of Music programme in organ performance under the tutelage ofProfessor Kevin Komisarukat the University of Toronto, having previously studied organ with Kin Yu Wong, Wai Chung Wong and as a participant in numerous masterclasses. She is a recipient of the Macau Government Scholarship and Faculty of Music Fellowship. |
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Organized Crime is the organ duo that grew from the friendship between Rachel Mahon and Sarah Svendsen, who met at the University of Toronto. Their programmes include a combination of classic organ repertoire and popular music transcribed and arranged for the instrument. The goal of this duo is to entertain audiences with their music and antics (involving costume changes, dazzling shoes, and hot tempers) and to promote the organ to a wider audience of all ages. With this purpose in mind, Organized Crime Duo’s shows are unlike any other organ concert. |
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Rachel Mahon is Assistant Director of Music at Coventry Cathedral in the UK, where she accompanies and conducts the Cathedral Choir and curates organ recitals and visiting choirs. Prior to this, she was Assistant Organist at Chester Cathedral (UK) where she worked regularly with the Cathedral Choir. The choir’s album of anthems and canticles, which features Rachel on the organ, is soon to be released on the Priory label. |
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Past laureate of the Royal Canadian College of Organist’s (RCCO) National Organ Playing Competition, organist Sarah Svendsen is a graduate of the Yale School of Music and co-founder of/performer in Organized Crime Duo. Sarah specializes in the performance of Canadian organ works and has performed in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. In September of 2016, Sarah made her symphonic debut as soloist with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (WSO), for which her playing was reviewed to be “greatly virtuosic” by Chronicler musical, La Liberté. Svendsen is scheduled for a return appearance with the WSO in November 2019. |
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Christopher Reynolds was appointed Director of Music and Organist at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia in January of 2016. Prior to this appointment, Christopher was the Associate Director of Music at Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Christopher holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Organ Performance and Church Music from the University of Michigan, studying with the world-renowned organist, Dr. Marilyn Mason. |
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Alison Clark, a native of New Zealand, traveled to Canada in 1981 to complete a Masters Degree in Organ Performance at McGill University (Montreal). She won the New Zealand Organ Competition when she was 18, and while studying in Montreal she traveled to Chartres (France), Bruges (Belgium), Manchester (England), and Ann Arbor, Michigan to play in more Competitions. Alison has also performed for Radio New Zealand, and Radio Canada (Montreal). |
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Gordon D. Mansell with Tamara Hrycak Gordon Mansell is a Music Director, Choir Director, Composer and Titular Organist at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Toronto, Canada. He is also Executive Producer and Artistic Director of ORGANIX CONCERTS, an on-going year over year international organ festival series established in 2005. In 2017, ORGANIX CONCERTS was a recipient of the national Royal Canadian College of Organists Award of Excellence for its part in creating greater awareness of organ repertoire and organ performance. |
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Organist and musicologist Aaron James is the Director of Music at the Toronto Oratory of St.Philip Neri. An alumnus of the Eastman School of Music, he graduated in 2016 with both a PhDdegree in musicology and a DMA degree in organ, along with the Performer’s Certificate in the organ. He was the 2011 winner of the National Organ Playing Competition of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, and has won numerous other prizes and scholarships for his organ playing, including first prizes in the Florence and Stanley Osborne Organ Competition and the Howard FaircloughOrgan Competition; he was also a finalist in the 2012 Franz Schmidt International OrganCompetition (Kitzbühel, Austria). |
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Ian Grundy, conductor, organist and harpsichordist received his early musical education at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. A student of Canada’s pre-eminent organ pedagogue Douglas Bodle from the age of twelve, he was appointed Organ Scholar of Trinity College Chapel in the mid-’70s. |
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Born in Budapest, the legendary organ virtuoso Xaver Varnus was the first child of a mathematician mother and a jazz pianist father. By the age of six, Varnus knew exactly what he would become. His first piano teacher was Emma Németh, one of the last pupils of Claude Debussy. He lit up the musical firmament of the world like a shooting star. At sixteen, he undertook his first concert tour of Europe. |
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Organist, Dr. Dudley Oakes is a church musician, performer, teacher, and organ consultant. Oakes is also a member of the faculty of Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, Virginia where he has taught theory and organ since 2001. Oakes has served many churches in the DC area including ten years as organist and choirmaster at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Georgetown Parish. He has been busy nationally in the organ building industry since 1987. |