Gabriel Dessauer

Gabriel Dessauer ( born December 4, 1955 in Würzburg ) is a German cantor, concert organist and professor. He is responsible for church music at St. Boniface, Wiesbaden since 1981. He is an internationally concert organist and taught from 1995 to 2013 organ at the Hochschule für Musik Mainz. In 1985 he founded the project choir Reger -Chor.

Biography

Gabriel Dessauer, the son of Guido Dessauer and his wife Gabrielle, completed his schooling in 1974 with the Abitur at the College of St. Blaise. He first spent a year studying church music at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich, in the organ with Elmar Schloter. From 1975 to 1980 he studied church music and organ at the Conservatory of Music at Diethard Hellmann and Klemens Schnorr. He continued his studies with Franz Lehrndorfer and received in 1982 the master class diploma.

He was organist at church services in St. Blaise from 1971 to 1974, then a year at the Protestant Academy Tutzing and choir director of the evangelical church choir in Tutzing. From 1975 to 1981 he was cantor of St. Andrew, Munich.

Church Music in St. Boniface, Wiesbaden

Since 1981, Dessauer cantor of St. Boniface, the Catholic main church of Wiesbaden, the state capital of Hesse. He heads the Church Choir of St. Boniface with 107 members, was founded in 1862, as well as the children's choir of St. Boniface and the Schola who maintains the Gregorian chant. The choir sings in worship services, including regular orchestral Masses of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert at Christmas and Easter. 2011 Mass No. 1 was listed in B- flat Major by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, 2012, the Missa " Dixit Maria" by Hans Leo Hassler. Dessauer initiated in 1985 the new construction of the organ, which was built in 1954 by Romanus Seifert & Sohn, by the organ builder Hugo Mayer. In 1995 he added a three electronic bass register.

Every year, since 1997 regularly on 3 October, the Day of German Unity, directs Dessauer a choral concert with works such as Mendelssohn's Elijah, A German Requiem by Brahms, and Verdi's Messa da Requiem. Choir and Children's Choir appeared together in Hermann Suter's Le Laudi (1998 and 2007 ) and 2004 in the German premiere of John Rutter's Mass of the Children. Launch, in 2006 Dessauer 's Requiem by Karl Jenkins from the year 2004. 2010 he chose works by Bach, his Mass in G minor and choral works from the Cantatas BWV 140, BWV 12, BWV 120, and We thank you, God, we thank you. In 2011 he conducted Haydn's The Creation, with the children's choir choir soprano reinforced.

On the 150th anniversary of the choir in 2012 commissioned Dessau commissioned Colin Mawby, the Missa Solemnis Boniface Fair for soprano, choir, children's choir, oboe and organ to compose. The work was completed in 2011 and premiered on October 3, 2012.

2013 presented Dessauer a performance of Schubert's Mass No. 6, the Unfinished Symphony the composer ahead,

He has performed with the choir of St. Boniface in 1986 in Azkoitia and San Sebastián, in both churches on a Cavaillé -Coll organ (1986 ), in the Limburg Cathedral, 1987, in St. James, Görlitz 1990, in Memphis, Tennessee in 1996. on a choir trip to Rome in 2008 he designed with the choir concert in San Paolo entro le mura with Vivaldi's Gloria and Haydn's Nelson Mass, accompanied by an Italian orchestra and a mass in St. Peter.

Dessauer put at the beginning of his work, first the tradition of a monthly hour of sacred music continued and later organized bonuses Music Weeks, a series of choral and organ concerts on an issue in two weeks. In the Music Week 2010, Reger and more concerted inter alia Jürgen Sonnentheil (St. Petri, Cuxhaven ), Kent Tritle (St. Ignatius Loyola, New York) and Ignace Michiels (Sint - Salvatorskathedraal, Bruges ).

Organ concerts

Dessauer played organ concerts in Europe and the USA, where, among other things in the Washington National Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. He played the organ in Kotzschmar Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine, and in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. In 2004 he gave a lecture at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists in Los Angeles on the choral music of Max Reger, who was a member of the St. Boniface when he was studying in Wiesbaden and lived. 2005 Dessau played the Spreckels Organ in San Diego, the largest outdoor organ in the world. In 2010 he gave a concert at St. Ignatius Loyola, New York.

Since 1992, organized for the Rheingau Music Festival organ tours, which led to historic organs in the Rheingau, later also to neighboring churches and cathedrals, the Worms Cathedral and Trinity Church, the Speyer Cathedral, Wurzburg Cathedral, and Fulda Dom.

Dessauer played regularly until 2010 a New Year's Eve concert at the Walcker organ in the Market Church in Wiesbaden together with its organist Hans Uwe Hielscher.

Teaching

From 1995 to 2013 taught Dessauer organ at the Hochschule für Musik Mainz, a largely autonomous part of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

Reger -Chor

1985 Dessau invited singers one to make a project choir to perform a single work, the Hebbel - Requiem of Reger in the organ version of Max Beckschäfer. The name Reger Choir was chosen as 1988 was a second project of the German premiere of the Mass op 111 by Joseph Jongen. Another project in 1990 was one of the first performances in Germany of Rutter's Requiem, included on the first CD of the choir. 2001 launched an international collaboration with organist Ignace Michiels, which combines an approximately equal number of choristers from Flanders and the Rhine -Main area for an annual concert, which is listed both in Germany and in Belgium. 2003 led Dessauer the premiere of the organ version of Reger The 100th Psalm of François Callebout.

In addition to works by Reger Dessauer chose preferred rarely performed sacred music, such as Herbert Howells, Benjamin Britten, Herbert Sumsion, Maurice Duruflé, Edward Elgar, Frederick Delius, William Lloyd Webber, Jules Van Nuffel, Joseph Ryelandt, Andrew Carter, Kurt Hessenberg, Rupert Lang, Morten Lauridsen and Eric Whitacre.

Choir projects

1995 Dessau prepared the chorus before a memorial concert 50 years after the war, together with the Schiersteiner Kantorei, Wiesbaden, an English choir and from Macon, Georgia, Britten's War Requiem, conducted by Martin Lutz. A year later, the choir took part in a performance of it in Macon.

In 1999 he organized together with Ignace Michiels a project to bring together a century of violence to an end. Both in Bruges and in Wiesbaden concert was performed by the choirs and choir Cantores of St. Boniface, with Michiels on organ and Dessauer at the desk. The concert in Bruges on October 23, 1999 was eeuw van zinloos geweld ( century senseless violence ). The program Van Nuffels In convertendo Dominus, Rudolf Mauersberger were How is the city desolate, and Duruflé's Requiem. The concert in Wiesbaden called reconciliation concert at the end of the century.

In November 2009, Dessauer led again Duruflé Requiem, this time with a choir of volunteers who wanted to make a stand against anti-Semitism in a memorial concert. Janina Moeller sang the mezzo- soprano, Petra Morath - Pusinelli played the organ.

Recordings

• Contrasts, Gabriel Dessauer at the Mayer organ at St. Boniface, Organ Historical Society Catalog
• Organ Fireworks I - V
• Just for Fun
• John Rutter: Requiem, motets by Reger, Julius Reubke Sonata The 94th Psalm, Reger -Chor, Monika Fuhrmann (soprano), instrumentalists, organ ( Rutter ): Petra Morath, Organ ( Reubke ) and management: Gabriel Dessauer (1990, live in St. Boniface, Wiesbaden)
• Romantic organ concerts, Marco Enrico Bossi: Concerto in A minor, Op 100, Josef Gabriel Rheinberger: Concerto in G minor, Opus 177, Léon Boëllmann: Suite Gothique, Op 25, the Rhine-Main Chamber Philharmonic, Conductor: Jürgen Bruns ( 1997)
• Hermann Suter: Le Laudi, Zofia Kilanowicz, Pamela Pantos, Andreas Karasiak, Johann Werner Preinsfeld, Choir of St. Boniface, children's choir of St. Boniface, Witold Lutoslawski Philharmonic Wroclaw, 1999
• Max Reger: Hebbel - Requiem, organ works, Reger -Chor -International Organ: Ignace Michiels, conducted by Gabriel Dessauer (2001, live in St. Boniface, Wiesbaden)
• Max Reger: The 100th Psalm, Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue in E minor, Op 127, Reger -Chor -International Organ: Ignace Michiels, line: (2003, live in St. Boniface, Wiesbaden)