SOPP558: Hans Davidsson on the Upcoming Gothenburg International Organ Festival 2020 "The Organ as Mirror of Its Time"

Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast 558!

Today's guest is Hans Davidsson, Artistic Director of Göteborg International Organ Festival & Göteborg International Organ Academy.

​Hans Davidsson (born 1958) is a Swedish organist and organ teacher. He was one of the driving forces behind establishing the organ research center GOArt and the Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative. He is currently professor of organ at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

Davidsson studied organ at University of Gothenburg with Hans Fagius and Rune Wåhlberg. He later spent three years at the Sweelinck Conservatory, Amsterdam, studying with Jacques van Oortmerssen. He began teaching organ at Göteborg University in 1986 and was appointed professor in 1988. In 1991 he became the first doctor of music performance in Sweden, successfully defending his dissertation on the organ music of Matthias Weckmann. From 1995 until 2000 he was the director of the Göteborg Organ Art Center, GOArt, leading research in organ building and performance practice.

​From 2001 to 2012 he worked at the Eastman School of Music serving as professor of organ and project director of the Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative. In 2007 he was appointed professor of organ at University of the Arts Bremen and in 2011 professor of organ at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. In January 2004 he was awarded H. M. The King's Medal for "significant accomplishments in musicology and music, primarily in the fields of organ research and organ education". In 2015, he was awarded the Large Prize by the Frobenius Foundation in Denmark for “significant achievements as musicologist, pedagogue and musician”. In 2016, he was elected member of the Royal Academy of Music in Sweden.

In this conversation Hans Davidsson shares his insights about the upcoming Gothenburg International Organ Festival 2020 "The Organ as Mirror of Its Time".
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Related link:

https://www.organacademy.se

Hans Davidsson (Photo by Sven Andersson)

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