CONCERT "HORN & ORGAN"

Concert with Léon HALSDORF Horn and Thorsten PECH Organ

Programme

George Frideric Handel 1685 - 1759 3rd Sonata F major in the arrangement for horn & organ, Adagio-Largo-Allegro

George Frideric Handel 1685 - 1759 Organ Concerto No 13, "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale" Larghetto - Allegro

Laurent Menager 1835 - 1902 "Sur la Montagne" op 35, for horn & organ

Dom Paul Benoît 1893 - 1979 "Evocation" from Diptique en l'honneur de Ste Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus, organ

Lodewijk Mortelmans 1868 - 1956 "Lyric Pastoral" for horn and organ

Reinhold Glière 1875 - 1956 "Intermezzo" from 4 pieces op. 35, for horn & organ

Théodor Grünberger 1756 - 1820 Three pieces from the "Organ Mass No 5" A - major Maestoso - Fuga -Rondo

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart 1756 - 1791 "Concerto Nr 3" E - flat major in the arrangement for horn & organ Allegro - Romance (Larghetto) - Allegro

Leo HALSDORF

Born in Luxembourg in 1979, Leo HALSDORF began studying horn with Marc Bouchard at the age of 10 at the Luxembourg City Conservatory. In 2001, he gave up the mathematics studies he had begun to pursue his passion, music. He began his music studies at the Masstricht Conservatoire with Prof. Erich Penzel, where he received his Bachelor's degree, and then went on to take his soloist exam at the Stuttgart Musikhochschule with Prof. Christian Lampert. He mentions Prof. Frøydis Ree Wekre from Oslo as another inspiring mentor.

After only one year of study, he earned his first position with the Aachen Symphony Orchestra, and shortly thereafter was hired as deputy principal horn at the Bavarian State Orchestra. He moved to the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in the same position, and a year later became soloist at the Hamburg State Opera. From 2006 to 2012 he was principal horn with the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, where he also taught as mentor of the Orchestra Academy.

An avid chamber music lover, he regularly plays in a variety of settings, with strings, winds or piano, enjoying performing rarely played works. He is also a member of the OPL Brass Quintet and the Kammerata Luxembourg.

Thorsten PECH

Thorsten Andreas PECH (1960), born in Wuppertal - Eberfeld, has been working as a concert organist, conductor, choir director and cantor for 44 years. After his studies of church music (graduation with the cantor's examination in 1980) and the subsequent organ concert studies in Düsseldorf (examination in 1983), he was drawn into the world to train as a conductor in Vienna (examination in 1985). He has remained a musician in different worlds, whether as a concert organist, e.g. in China, Japan, Russia, Poland and numerous neighbouring countries in Western Europe, twice at the main organ of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, or as a conductor in the oratorio and symphonic field. After all, Thorsten Pech has remained true to his Rhenish roots - since 1977 he has worked as a cantor and organist, currently at the Old Lutheran Church at the Kolk (Klais organ) and the Friedhofskirche (Ölbergdom, with the historic Wilhelm Sauer organ from 1898) in Wuppertal. From 1989 - 2021 he conducted the Bachverein Düsseldorf as artistic director and has been choir director and conductor at the Konzertchor Wuppertal since 2003. Due to his many years of supra-regional activity, Thorsten Pech was appointed "Music Director" by the Fachverband Deutsche Berufschorleiter in 1998. He was a laureate of the "Enno and Christa Springmann" Foundation in 2016.

In addition to his extensive repertoire, which includes the works of all epochs from the early baroque to the modern, a special musical focus lies in the music of the German organ romanticism (Hesse, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Reger, Rheinberger and others). Thorsten Pech is also highly regarded and sought after as an improviser on the organ, as a teacher in organ master classes on 19th century organ music and organ building, and as a competent organ building specialist for the instruments of Wilhelm-Sauer-Frankfurt/Oder.

www.thorsten-pech com - Facebook: Thorsten Andreas Pech - You Tube Channel: Choral Voice - Thorsten Andreas Pech