This has been our last day in Tallinn for the organ music festival. There are still 5 days left of the festival but we fly to Copenhagen tomorrow. The festival dates were postponed by a week this year, which has meant that our timing only allowed for us to attend a bit more than half the festival. We could have gone to more concerts than we did, but we selected those of most interest to us and allowed time to do other things.
Today we went to a fabulous concert at St John's Church. Again, as for yesterday's concert, there were two students who performed the first bracket on the small organ at the front of the church. They were both 19 year old girls (one from Estonia and one from Russia). They played pieces by Bach, Buxtehude and Arvo Pärt. The remainder of the concert was performed by an American organist, James David Christie. He played works by Pēteris Vasks, (a Latvian composer born in 1946) Bach and Felix Alexandre Guilmant (a French composer). The pieces by Vasks and Guilmant were very flamboyant and showed the extraordinary dexterity of Christie's capability. By comparison, the Bach pieces were more mellow!
Christie has a huge international experience and amongst a long list of positions held, he has been the organist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1978 and is music director of Ensemble Abendmusik, a Boston-based period instrument orchestra and chorus specialising in sacred music of the 17th and 18th centuries. He has performed with many world renowned period instrument orchestras and is a professor of organ and has taught at numerous establishments. He is quite an exuberant character. We saw him chatting with various people before and after the concert and he had a lot of students flocking up to him afterwards. He received a standing ovation from Andres Uibo (who we heard play previously, and is the convenor of the music festival).
On a side note - there was one loud speaking male offender, who insisted on talking during one of the pieces. One of the Church officials quietly went over to him to give him a warning. He continued to talk loudly, so she went back to him and promptly marched him out of the concert! Before this happened, we decided to move after the first movement that was played by the Russian girl, to get away from a bunch of enthusiastic music students who insisted on whispering! We didn't feel like chastising them in front of their teachers, so moved near the back of the church. We then had a good position to hear the big organ when Christie took over.
Throughout the festival it has been wonderful to see such talent emerging in the young people. We have a lot of budding brilliant organists emerging.
