Every year the Three Choirs Festival features a celebrity organist and this year it was Olivier Latry from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He was named titular organist when he was only 23 years old and Organist emeritus at the Orchestre National de Montréal from 2012.

I first heard him play a recital in California at an AGO convention maybe 8-9 years ago and attended a masterclass. His playing made a huge impression on me—especially his improvisations.

I heard him play recently on my last trip to Paris, and he improvised a wild postlude. I bet those tourists didn’t know how brilliant he was!

Today’s concert included the Bach Prelude and Fugue in E-flat (“St. Anne”), Franck Choral In B minor, Debussy Clair de lune, Dupré Prelude and Fugue in G minor, and Alain, Postlude for the office of Compline—all played from memory. The only work he used with the music was Thierry Escaich, Evocation II, which has tons of driving rhythms and manual changes. It was my favorite work of the concert!

It was only then that the page turner handed him a sealed envelope with the mystery theme; which turned out to be the melody from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Latry’s improvisation used only the first few notes of theme and started out as a scherzo. He then exploited the melody in all sorts of wild combinations and was absolutely brilliant.

He obliged with an encore: a transcription of Bach’s Sinfonia from Cantata 29, played extremely fast and from memory.

A full house for Olivier Latry!

Olivier Latry had to walk all the way to the front to take his bows.

Oh-oh! We just heard that Olivier hurt his ankle when he jumped onto the stage down in front to take his bows! Hope he’s okay!