Fourteen young organists from across the world will participate in the senior category of the Northern Ireland International Organ Competition (NIIOC). The players (drawn from the UK, mainland Europe, Australia or China) are Isaac Adni, Francesco Cardelli, François Cloete, Theresa Heidler, Philipp Hennig, George Herbert, Jonathan Lee, Benjamin Markovic, Raimondo Mazzon, Jeremy Ng, Miriam Reveley, Lorenzo Rupil, Jason Tang and Tingshuo Yang.
Seven performers – Barbara Dooley, Daire Downey, Michael Doyle, Gergő Kiss, Elisabeth Merschdorf, Gavin Phelps and Georg Schäfer – will compete in the intermediate category (Grades 6–8 standard) and two – Ciaran Ward, Darragh Magee – in the junior category (Grades 4–5).
The NIIOC is for players aged 22 and under. It aims to give players their first experience of a competition environment, and provide them with major recital engagements, financial support and recording opportunities.
This year’s competition promises to be an exciting event. Richard Yarr MBE, founding chairman of NIIOC, said: ‘We had intended to have just 12 finalists in the senior competition, but the number and standard of entries was so high that we decided to invite 14 organists to perform, in order to extend the opportunity and the competition experience to as many people as possible. It is clear that NIIOC is now the go-to competition for organists of this age.’
The senior and intermediate rounds of the competition this year take place in St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, and the junior competition in St Malachy’s Roman Catholic Church, Armagh. The jury is chaired by the Canadian organist Isabelle Demers, and the other jurors are Daniel Hyde, Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge, and David Hill, a patron of NIIOC since 2011.
As part of the festivities, Isabelle Demers will lead a masterclass on 22 August, and a workshop on performance etiquette and presentation on 23 August. Both events are open to the public, as are the competition performances.
