CHARTRES – Festival international d’Orgue : Karol Mossakowski

Sunday July 12 at 4:15 p.m. at Chartres Cathedral: International organ festival. Karol Mossakowski (Poland). Free entry within the limit of authorized places.

Karol MOSSAKOWSKI is recognized both for his qualities as an interpreter and as an improviser. He forged his deep musical personality at the age of three, when he began to learn the piano and the organ with his father. After studying music in Poland, he joined the organ, improvisation and writing classes at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, where he had as teachers Olivier Latry, Michel Bouvard, Thierry Escaich, Philippe Lefebvre and László Fassang.

Among the many distinctions he holds, he won first prize at the Prague International Spring Competition in 2013, as well as the Grand Prix de Chartres in 2016, one of the most prestigious international competitions. In 2010, he won the Feliks Nowowiejski International Competition in Poznań. In 2015, he won the Grand Prix and the Public Prize of the Jean-Louis-Florentz d’Angers International Competition awarded by the Academy of Fine Arts, as well as the André-Marchal Grand Prix in Biarritz. In 2016, he also won the International Boëllmann-Gigout Prize in Strasbourg. The same year, he received the “Debiut Roku” prize from the National Institute of Music and Dance of Poland, equivalent to the “instrumental solo revelation of the year” of the Victoires de la Musique in France.

In 2014-2015, he spent six months as a “Young Artist in Residence” at Saint-Louis Cathedral in New Orleans (USA), where he gave numerous recitals and courses in interpretation and improvisation.

Karol Mossakowski aims to bring music to life through improvisation, to which he gives pride of place in his recitals and develops when accompanying silent films. Thus, sought after for his innate talent as an improviser, he recently gave film concerts for the Quebec City Film Festival, or the Lumière Festival in Lyon, during which the public was able to listen to him in the accompaniment of the film Joan of Arc by Dreyer at the Auditorium of Lyon, recently published on DVD by Gaumont Pathé.

Karol Mossakowski teaches organ and improvisation at the Hector Berlioz Conservatory in Paris and holds the great organs of Notre-Dame de la Treille Cathedral in Lille.

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