Tonight’s concert featured two superstars of the organ world, Olivier Latry of Notre Dame cathedral of Paris, and his wife, Shin-Young Lee, who to me previously was unknown, but certainly as deserving as her husband the moniker of “superstar.” The concert took place at St. Ignatius Church, with a new organ by Hupalo & Repasky Organ Builders (2024), a gorgeous, very large ornate building, with high ceilings.

The program was with the Berkeley Symphony, Ming Luke, conducting, and was as follows:

Concerto in One Movement (Emma Lou Diemer)
Ascending Light (Michael Gandolfi)
Toccata Festiva (Samuel Barber)
The Rite of Spring (Igor Stravinksky)

Shin-Young was the solo organist in both the Emma Lou Diemer and the Samuel Barber; while Olivier Latry was the soloist in the Michael Gandolf. After the Barber, the orchestra left the stage and the two organists played a duet version of The Rite of Spring, from the reduction for piano duet written by the composer.

On the first half, I was really drawn to the piece by Michael Gandolf, who was commissioned to write a piece in memory of those who perished in the Armenian genocide. It was full of suspension and dissonance — Some people were complaining about so much dissonance in the whole concert, but to me, it added grand tension and triumphant release. I remember a lot of cymbals in the orchestral part!

For me, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was a tour de force, with what seemed to me thousands and thousands of piston changes! As you can see by the photo below, they used an iPad, and had a (human) page turner with a remote control Bluetooth page turner.

As was written in the program notes, Olivier Latry had been intrigued with Stravinsky since he was a teenager. He tried to create a transcription of the piece for one performer plus a replay accompaniment but found this unsatisfactory and discovered the composer’s own two-piano version worked well for two organists—all he did was register it for the organ. He said it was like adding color to a black and white photo.

What a grand night!