Lunchtime Organ Recital: Nicolas Kilhoffer
- Occurring
- for 30 mins
- Venue
- The Temple Church, London
- Address The Temple Church, Temple, London, EC4Y 1BB, United Kingdom
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544
Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937)
Symphony for Organ No. 5 in F minor, Op. 42 No. 1
Allegro vivace
Nicolas Kilhoffer (b. 2002)
Improvisation
Born in 2002 in Saverne (Eastern France), Nicolas Kilhoffer started learning the piano at the age of 7. After teaching himself organ and playing at church from the age of 10, he had lessons in his hometown music school before being admitted to the Conservatoire in Strasbourg in 2017 where his teachers included Daniel Maurer (organ and improvisation), Elyette Weil (piano) and Gaël Lozac’h (harmony). Studying business in Nantes, Nicolas Kilhoffer completed his training in piano at the Conservatoire there in with Victoria Kamyshinets. He also attended several masterclasses given by Vincent Dubois, Thierry Escaich and Thomas Ospital, and now has the opportunity to study under the guidance of Johann Vexo (choir organist at Notre-Dame de Paris) and Philippe Lefebvre (Notre-Dame de Paris) in addition to his programme at the Conservatoire de Paris with Christophe Mantoux. He regularly performs in France and abroad (Austria, Belgium, Canada, Italy, the United States, Greece, Kenya, Portugal) in recitals where improvisation plays a central role. He has had the opportunity to play numerous instruments during recent residencies in Australia and New Caledonia. Nicolas Kilhoffer has also taught improvisation in Nairobi (Kenya), leading a masterclass attended by many organists from East Africa, and more recently at the University of Victoria in British Columbia as part of an exchange semester. www.nicolaskilhoffer.com
The Temple Church organ
The organ in the Temple church was built in 1924 for the Castle of Glen Tanar, Aberdeenshire, and installed in 1954 in the rebuilt church (following war damage), the gift of Lord Glentanar. The organ case was designed by W. E. Godfrey and installed in 1966 and is modelled on drawings of the Temple’s Father Smith organ of 1688, showing the crests of Inner and Middle Temple. The organ was rebuilt in 2013 by Harrison and Harrison of Durham and has 66 stops over four manuals.