29th St. Albans International Organ Competition

The 29th St. Albans International Organ Competition concluded at London’s St. John’s Smith Square on July 22, after nearly two weeks of competition and festival events in venues around the city of St. Albans and London.

The First Prize for Interpretation and the Audience Prize were awarded to Thomas Gaynor, currently pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree and the Artist’s Certificate at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York. He is a member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2016. Second Prize for Interpretation and the Peter Hurford Bach Prize were awarded to Ágoston Tóka from Hungary. The Philip Moore Prize for the best performance of the commissioned new work was presented to Lotta-Sophie Harder from Germany. The Douglas May Award was presented to Sora Yu from South Korea.

The top Tournemire Prize for Improvisation was not awarded. Special prizes in the Improvisation Competition were presented to Christian Groß from Germany and Shihono Higa from Japan. The members of this year’s jury, who included several winners from previous generations, were Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin (France), Leo van Doeselaar (the Netherlands), László Fassang (Hungary), David Goode (UK), Naomi Matsui (Japan), Pier Damiano Peretti (Italy/Austria), and William Porter (United States).

St. Albans International Organ Competition, the civic reception for competitors (photo credit: Steve Hamill)