Jeremy Filsell
Encyclopedia
Jeremy Filsell is an English
pianist
, organist
, and composer
.
and organ
from a young age, he was a Limpus prize winner for the FRCO examination, which he took when he was 19, and Silver Medallist of the Worshipful Company of Musicians
. He studied music at Oxford University, where he was Organ Scholar at Keble College
. During this time, he studied organ with Nicolas Kynaston and Daniel Roth
. He went on to study piano with David Parkhouse and Hilary McNamara at the Royal College of Music
and Martin Hughes at the University of Surrey
. He won second prize in the 1993 St Albans International Organ Competition.
He has particular interest in English
piano music and French
organ music. He plays in a piano trio
with Oliver Lewis, violin
, and Neil Heyde, cello
, and a piano duo with Francis Pott
.
repertoire for Radio 3
. He has been a repetiteur
for John Eliot Gardner, Vernon Handley
and Sir Charles Groves
. From 1989 to 1991 he was pianist of the European Contemporary Music Ensemble. He has recorded little-known piano music by Eugene Goossens
, Herbert Howells
, Carl Johann Eschmann, and Bernard Stevens
, and the piano and organ
sonatas of Julius Reubke
.
in London in 1998, over nine weekly recitals at St Peter's, Eaton Square. He recorded the same works over a two week period in September of the same year, on 12 CDs. He completed a Ph.D.
thesis on contextual, analytical and aesthetic issues in the music of Marcel Dupré, at Birmingham Conservatoire/University of Central England.
He has made original transcription
s for organ of orchestra
l works (such as Paul Dukas
's The Sorcerer's Apprentice
) and transcribed the improvisation
s of Pierre Cochereau
as recorded at Notre-Dame de Paris. These are published by Editions Chantraine, Belgium.
He has made a complete recording of the six Organ Symphonies of Louis Vierne
on the 1890 Cavaillé-Coll organ in St Ouen Rouen, and the organ music of Arthur Wills
and Francis Pott
, amongst many others.
, Visiting Tutor in Organ Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music
, taught at Eton College
and was a countertenor
Lay Clerk
in the choir of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
. Previously he was formerly Assistant Organist at Ely Cathedral
, Director of Music at St Luke's, Chelsea, Assistant Director of Music St Peter's, Eaton Square, both in London
. He has taught masterclasses in performance and interpretation on the Henry Wood
and Oundle
International Summer Schools, Eton Choral Courses, and in the U.S.
at Yale University
and Utah State University
.
From 2008 - 2009, Filsell was Principal Organist of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
in Washington D.C. He then directed the music at Old St Paul's Episcopal Church, Baltimore.
After Easter 2010, he became Artist-in-Residence at Washington National Cathedral
.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
pianist
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, organist
Pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
, and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Biography
Having played pianoPiano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
and organ
Pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
from a young age, he was a Limpus prize winner for the FRCO examination, which he took when he was 19, and Silver Medallist of the Worshipful Company of Musicians
Worshipful Company of Musicians
The Worshipful Company of Musicians is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. Its history dates back to at least 1350. Originally a specialist guild for musicians, its role became an anachronism in the 18th century, when the centre of music making in London moved from the City to the...
. He studied music at Oxford University, where he was Organ Scholar at Keble College
Keble College, Oxford
Keble College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the University Museum and the University Parks. The college is bordered to the north by Keble Road, to the south by Museum Road, and to the west by Blackhall...
. During this time, he studied organ with Nicolas Kynaston and Daniel Roth
Daniel Roth (organist)
Daniel François Roth , is a French organist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Roth began his musical training at the conservatory in his home town, Mulhouse with Professeur Joseph Victor Meyer...
. He went on to study piano with David Parkhouse and Hilary McNamara at the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
and Martin Hughes at the University of Surrey
University of Surrey
The University of Surrey is a university located within the county town of Guildford, Surrey in the South East of England. It received its charter on 9 September 1966, and was previously situated near Battersea Park in south-west London. The institution was known as Battersea College of Technology...
. He won second prize in the 1993 St Albans International Organ Competition.
He has particular interest in English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
piano music and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
organ music. He plays in a piano trio
Piano trio
A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music...
with Oliver Lewis, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, and Neil Heyde, cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
, and a piano duo with Francis Pott
Francis Pott
Francis Pott, born 25 August 1957, is a British composer, pianist, senior academic and university administrator.-Life:He held open music scholarships at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, studying composition at the latter with Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood while also pursuing...
.
Piano
He has performed as a piano soloist around the world, and recorded in solo and concertoConcerto
A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...
repertoire for Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
. He has been a repetiteur
Répétiteur
Répétiteur , repetitore , or Korrepetitor / Repetitor , originally from the French verb répéter meaning "to repeat, to go over, to learn, to rehearse"....
for John Eliot Gardner, Vernon Handley
Vernon Handley
Vernon George "Tod" Handley CBE was a British conductor, known in particular for his support of British composers. He was born of a Welsh father and an Irish mother into a musical family in Enfield, London. He acquired the nickname "Tod" because his feet were turned in at his birth, which his...
and Sir Charles Groves
Charles Groves
Sir Charles Barnard Groves CBE was an English conductor. He was known for the breadth of his repertoire and for encouraging contemporary composers and young conductors....
. From 1989 to 1991 he was pianist of the European Contemporary Music Ensemble. He has recorded little-known piano music by Eugene Goossens
Eugène Goossens
Eugène Goossens was the name of three notable musicians . Listed chronologically:*Eugène Goossens, père , conductor *Eugène Goossens, fils , violinist and conductor...
, Herbert Howells
Herbert Howells
Herbert Norman Howells CH was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.-Life:...
, Carl Johann Eschmann, and Bernard Stevens
Bernard Stevens
Bernard Stevens was a British composer.Born in London, Stevens studied English and Music at the University of Cambridge with E. J. Dent, then at the Royal College of Music with R.O. Morris and Gordon Jacob from 1937 to 1940...
, and the piano and organ
Sonata on the 94th Psalm
The Sonata on the 94th Psalm in C minor is a sonata for solo organ by Julius Reubke, based on the text of Psalm 94. It is considered one of the pinnacles of the Romantic repertoire.It is in three movements:*I. Grave - Larghetto - Allegro con fuoco - Grave...
sonatas of Julius Reubke
Julius Reubke
Julius Reubke was a German composer, pianist and organist. In his short life — he died at the age of 24 — he composed the Sonata on the 94th Psalm, in C minor, which was and still is considered one of the greatest organ works in the repertoire.-Biography:Born in Hausneindorf, a small...
.
Organ
He performed the complete organ works of Marcel DupréMarcel Dupré
Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...
in London in 1998, over nine weekly recitals at St Peter's, Eaton Square. He recorded the same works over a two week period in September of the same year, on 12 CDs. He completed a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
thesis on contextual, analytical and aesthetic issues in the music of Marcel Dupré, at Birmingham Conservatoire/University of Central England.
He has made original transcription
Transcription (music)
In music, transcription can mean notating a piece or a sound which was previously unnotated, as, for example, an improvised jazz solo. Further examples include ethnomusicological notation of oral traditions of folk music, such as Béla Bartók's and Ralph Vaughan Williams' collections of the national...
s for organ of orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l works (such as Paul Dukas
Paul Dukas
Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...
's The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the English name of a poem by Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling, written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas.-Story:...
) and transcribed the improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
s of Pierre Cochereau
Pierre Cochereau
Pierre Eugène Charles Cochereau , was a French organist, improviser, composer, and pedagogue.- Biography :Pierre Cochereau was born on July 9, 1924 in Saint-Mandé, near Paris. In 1929, after a few months of violin instruction, he began to take piano lessons with Marius-François Gaillard...
as recorded at Notre-Dame de Paris. These are published by Editions Chantraine, Belgium.
He has made a complete recording of the six Organ Symphonies of Louis Vierne
Louis Vierne
Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer.-Life:Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers, Vienne, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but at an early age was discovered to have an unusual gift for music. Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French...
on the 1890 Cavaillé-Coll organ in St Ouen Rouen, and the organ music of Arthur Wills
Arthur Wills
Dr Arthur Wills OBE is a musician, composer, and professor. He was Director of Music at Ely Cathedral from 1958 to 1990, and also held a Professorship at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1964 until 1992...
and Francis Pott
Francis Pott
Francis Pott, born 25 August 1957, is a British composer, pianist, senior academic and university administrator.-Life:He held open music scholarships at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, studying composition at the latter with Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood while also pursuing...
, amongst many others.
Academic and professional posts
Until 2008 he was Lecturer in Academic Studies at the Royal Academy of MusicRoyal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
, Visiting Tutor in Organ Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music
Royal Northern College of Music
The Royal Northern College of Music is a music school in Manchester, England. It is located on Oxford Road in Chorlton on Medlock, at the western edge of the campus of the University of Manchester and is one of four conservatories associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music...
, taught at Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and was a countertenor
Countertenor
A countertenor is a male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of a contralto, mezzo-soprano, or a soprano, usually through use of falsetto, or far more rarely than normal, modal voice. A pre-pubescent male who has this ability is called a treble...
Lay Clerk
Lay clerk
A lay clerk, also known as a lay vicar, song man or a vicar choral, is a professional adult singer in a Cathedral or collegiate choir in the United Kingdom. The Vicars Choral were substitutes for the Canons...
in the choir of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it...
. Previously he was formerly Assistant Organist at Ely Cathedral
Ely Cathedral
Ely Cathedral is the principal church of the Diocese of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, England, and is the seat of the Bishop of Ely and a suffragan bishop, the Bishop of Huntingdon...
, Director of Music at St Luke's, Chelsea, Assistant Director of Music St Peter's, Eaton Square, both in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He has taught masterclasses in performance and interpretation on the Henry Wood
Henry Wood (conductor)
Sir Henry Joseph Wood, CH was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences...
and Oundle
Oundle
Oundle is an ancient market town on the River Nene in Northamptonshire, England, with a population of 5,345 or 5,674 . It lies some north of London and south-west of Peterborough...
International Summer Schools, Eton Choral Courses, and in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and Utah State University
Utah State University
Utah State University is a public university located in Logan, Utah. It is a land-grant and space-grant institution and is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities....
.
From 2008 - 2009, Filsell was Principal Organist of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is a prominent Latin Rite Catholic basilica located in Washington, D.C., honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, the Patroness of the United States...
in Washington D.C. He then directed the music at Old St Paul's Episcopal Church, Baltimore.
After Easter 2010, he became Artist-in-Residence at Washington National Cathedral
Washington National Cathedral
The Washington National Cathedral, officially named the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church located in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. Of neogothic design, it is the sixth-largest cathedral in the world, the second-largest in...
.
External links
- http://www.jeremyfilsell.com/ - personal website