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Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast #78!\n\nhttp://www.organduo.lt/podcast\n\nToday's guest is Jean-Paul IMBERT, organist from France. Born in Clermont-Ferrand in 1942, he studied piano and organ : at the early age of 15 he was appointed organist of the church of Sainte Jeanne d\u2019Arc. In Paris he studied with Pierre Cochereau and Jean Guillou whose assistant he was from 1971 to 1993 in Saint-Eustache.\n \nIn 1993, he was appointed as organist on the Kleuker instrument of Notre-Dame des Neiges in Alpe d\u2019Huez and was responsible for organising concerts with organists from all over the world. Since 1988, he has organised workshops there with students from different countries and schools.\n \nThese workshops were developed into training courses with musicians such as Cornel Pana, who teaches Pan flute, and conductor and violonist Christian Ciuca for courses in high standards of choral singing ; operatic performers such as Jean Louis Serre and Marie-Therese Keller. \n \nSince 1999 he has taught every year at Bad-Rippoldsau in the Black Forest.\n \nFrom 1997 to 2006 he was the organist in the Basilica of Notre Dame du Perp\xe9tuel Secours in Paris where he contributed largely to the reputation of this magnificent contemporary instrument by organising a series of concerts \xab Organ in Duet \xbb, but also at the time of it\u2019s official inauguration with the orchestra of the Schola Cantorum conducted by Michel Denis in September 2004. He made several recordings on that organ .\n \nSince 1982 he taught at the Schola Cantorum, and his classes have produced a number of artists of international repute.\n \nHis concerts have seen him mostly in Europe where he intrigued the public with his innovative registration, exploring all the possibilities offered by the instruments.\n He has taken part in the most renown festivals: Caen, Chartres, Radio-France, Ravenna, Torino, Cambridge, Rome, Roquevaire, Bordeaux, Moscow, Freiburg in Brisgau, Gdansk-Oliwa, Portsmouth, Lausanne. He has a strong passion for Bach, and also the romantic school, and his interpretations are always colourful and lively. He has written a number of transcriptions of works by Prokoviev, Rachmaninov, Grieg, Liszt, Verdi, and Wagner.\n \nHe has received distinctions such as \xab Officier des Arts et des Lettres \xbb from the minister for Culture in 2010 and in 2014 was awarded the \xab Palmes Academiques \xbb by the minister for Education.\n \nHis discography incudes magnificent instruments: Saint-Eustache in Paris, Tonhalle of Z\xfcrich, Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, Saint-Etienne de Caen, Saint-Bonaventure of Lyon, Notre-Dame des neiges in Alpe d\u2019Huez, Notre-Dame du Perp\xe9tuel Secours in Paris.\n He has recorded not only a number of little known and rarely played works, but also transcriptions of great orchestral works, some of them written by him. For some recordings he received awards such as The Academie Charles Cros. There are also recordings of duets with the trumpetist Guy Touvron, the oboeist Antoine Sebillote and the flautist Gabriel Fumet.\n\nIn this conversation Diego talks the lessons he learned from the great masters, playing organ for ski tourists and arranging organ transcriptions.\n\nEnjoy and share your comments below.\n\u200b\nAnd don't forget to help spread the word about the SOP Podcast by sharing it with your organist friends.\n\nThanks for caring.\n\nRelevant links:\nhttp://imbertjeanpaul.fr\nA short film about Alpe d\u2019Huez:\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uokpAMHvbSA&feature=share