Oundle for Organists à Toulouse - voila!
Just the ticket for Oxbridge Organ Scholars
immediately before first term
(our dates are the week preceding Oxbridge Organ Award trials 2009)
Here is a unique course designed for those who hope to take up a professional career as an organist, are embarking as organ scholars, or who want to refresh their studies through contact with top tutors - all in a friendly, non-competitive setting. We offer up to twenty places for university/ conservatoire-level organists from around the world to enjoy coaching and personally-tailored advice from a top-team faculty.
And how may of you – ‘ fluent’ as you may believe in French literature – have actually sat at a Cavaillé-Coll and ventured to register with ventils, or discovered just how epic an effect Couperin et les autres envisaged when stabbing out a Pedal plainsong cantus firmus on 8’ Trompette?
Many students from the UK and overseas have found Oundle’s Advanced Academy as the gateway to further exciting study opportunities at home and abroad, and the Toulouse experience will offer special, memorable nuance. Students will be coached in small groups and enjoy access to the numerous historic and modern organs in Toulouse.
Lessons are conducted in French and English – everyone understands everything!

Toulouse
in the heart of Southern France, between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, on the banks of the Garonne! The Cosmopolitan Ville Rose joyously blends heritage and a modern lifestyle: you are bound to be seduced by the incomparable Toulousain lifestyle, coupled with the wealth of its cultural heritage. And it’s usually a place in the sun, as too a paradise for organists, home to the established Toulouse les Orgues Festival.
Key organs include Cavaillé-Coll’s celebrated 1889 instrument in Basilique St Sernin, and the stunning modern ‘baroque’ organ by Ahrend in Église-musée des Augustins.

the main organs
St Sernin - 3 manual Cavaillé-Coll, 1889
St Pierre des Chartreux - 3 manual classical, 1677-83
Église du Gésu – 2 manual Cavaillé-Coll, 1864
Cathédrale St Etienne - 3 manual classical
Les Augustins - 3 manual Ahrend, 1981, sophisticated ‘neo-historic’
Notre Dame du Taur - 3 manual Puget, 19th century
Chapelle St Claire de L’Institut Catholique de Toulouse – 2 manual Bancelle, modern
L’Eglise de la Daurade – 3 manual Poirier & Liebesknecht, early romantic – ventils
St Nicolas – 2 manual early 19th century, carrefour
between classical/ romantic designs

Accommodation
Single rooms – very comfortable – at L'Institut Catholique, in the heart of the City’s old quarter (10 minutes walk from St Sernin) from Monday 14 to Saturday morning 19 September.
We provide money towards meals.

Recital awards
The course will feature a composite student recital at L’Institut Catholique, and a selected group will give an organ recital in the privileged weekly slot at Musée les Augustins (awesome acoustic for the neo-Baroque Ahrend organ!). Oundle for Organists courses are noncompetitive but tutors assess standard, progress and potential; AA students in Toulouse are in pole position for recital awards in the UK and elsewhere during the following year or two.

the all-inclusive fee for this course is £530
(NB – book your own flight – early!)
to apply - click here

(self-supporting AA students could find themselves at the head of the queue for financial assistance. Ask us for advice.)

Observers … do please contact us
This course is just ideal for you – lots of delighted
‘customers’ on board with us in Toulouse so far!
And organists amongst you have enjoyed some
‘hands-on’ plus the odd spot of tuition too.