Course 11

Improvisation III by Prof. Thomas Lacôte

Dates: July 27-31 (2nd week)

Description
The purpose of this course is mainly to stimulate the imagination of young improvisers in the process of building their own musical world. Rather than pre-existing material to exploit, pre-existing forms to fill in, or reflexes to be acquired, we will concentrate on games and constraints that can help to conquest freedom and open unexpected ways to make the organ sound and express itself. We will enlarge our sources of inspiration by opening the curiosity for very diverse musical sources, close or far in time and space.

This course can not be combined with:
[6a] Organ repertoire by Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann & Johannes Brahms (Engels)
[6c] Organ repertoire by Georg Muffat and Middle-European contemporaries (Zerer)

(6b)

About Thomas Lacôte
Thomas Lacôte is a French composer and organist born in 1982. Organiste titulaire of the great organ at La Trinité church in Paris, he is professor of musical analysis at Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP), where he studied himself. His music for and with organ, opening new doors for the instrument’s sound, is championed by numerous performers around the world. In 2024-2025, he published on digital platforms a collection of improvisations called Streams, recorded on La Trinité and Ratingen (D) organs. He is invited by many institutions as performer, teacher and scholar, like Cambridge University, Eastman School of Music, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Conservatorio di Bologna and Haarlem Organ Festival. He is the author of numerous articles and of the book La modèle et l’invention, Olivier Messiaen et la technique de l’emprunt (with Y. Balmer and C. Murray). His works are published by Henry Lemoine.