Victoria International Organ Festival Presents : Peter Richard Conte (Philadelphia PA)

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Wednesday, July 25th, 2012
8:00 PM

Peter Richard Conte is Grand Court Organist of the world famous Wanamaker Organ at the Macy's Philadelphia department store. When not touring, he performs on the six-manual, 28,000-pipe instrument twice daily, six days per week. The Wanamaker Organ is the largest fully functioning musical instrument in the world. Mr. Conte was appointed Grand Court Organist in 1989, and is the fourth person to hold that title since the organ first played in 1911.

He is highly regarded as a skillful performer and arranger of organ transcriptions. Peter Richard Conte performs extensively throughout the United States and Canada, was a featured artist at the American Guild of Organists� National Convention in 2002, and at the International Organ Festival in Aosta, Italy, in September 2004. In addition to his concert career, he serves as Choirmaster and Organist of St. Clement�s Church, Philadelphia, where he directs an eighteen-voice professional choir in music of the Anglo Catholic tradition.

Peter Richard Conte is an Associate of the American Guild of Organists, has served on the executive board of its Philadelphia Chapter, and has presented guild workshops on transcriptions and improvisation. Mr. Conte studied with Larry Smith and Robert Rayfield at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he was awarded the prestigious Performers� Certificate in Organ. He later returned to Indiana University in 2008 to accept the School of Music�s Distinguished Alumni Award. During High School, he studied with Robert Kennedy, while serving as Associate Organist at the Cathedral of the Incarnation, Garden City, New York.

The Organ:

Casavant Fr�res Lt�e, Ste. Hyacinthe, Quebec
Opus 400 (1910)
4 manuals; electro-pneumatic action; ventil chests; moveable multiplexed console.
When it was purchased by Metropolitan Methodist Church in 1910, this was the largest church organ in Canada west of Toronto. In its first two decades it was played by such prominent recitalists as Joseph Bonnet, Marcel Dupr�, Charles M. Courboin, Dr. Alfred Hollins and Louis Vierne.
When the Victoria Conservatory of Music bought the church building in 1997, renovations required disconnection of the organ�s blower and console. After the conservatory moved in, the organ passively graced the new Alix Goolden Performance Hall for ten years until it was made playable again just in time for its 100th anniversary in July 2010. Its d�but was at a noon-hour recital with standing room only during the 2010 national convention of the Royal Canadian College of Organists.
http://rcco-victoria.org/festival/concerts.htm

Doors: 7:30pm
Show: 8:00pm
Admission: $25.00
Tickets: Ivy�s Bookshop, Long & McQuade, Church of St. John the Divine, Christ Church Cathedral