The Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition took place June 20–24.
Bryan Anderson received the $40,000 Pierre S. du Pont First Prize, a contract with Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, and a 2023–24 performance at Longwood. Anderson, who hails from Houston, Texas, also won the AGO Philadelphia Chapter Prize of $1,000, which recognizes the outstanding performance of the judges’ choice piece. Anderson is director of music at St. Thomas’s Episcopal Church and School in Houston, and a member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2017. He received his master’s in organ performance from Rice University and holds a bachelor’s and Artist Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music.
The $15,000 Firmin Swinnen Second Prize was awarded to Colin MacKnight of Bethesda, Maryland. MacKnight also won the $1,000 Audience Choice Prize and is director of music at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock, Arkansas. MacKnight received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from The Juilliard School. He is a member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2019.
Ádám Tabajdi from Debrecen, Hungary, received the $5,000 Clarence Snyder Third Prize. He is a doctoral student at the Liszt Academy, Budapest. He has interned at the Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris and was the resident organist of the Sapporo Concert Hall, Kitara, Japan.
In addition to Anderson, MacKnight, and Tabajdi, the five finalists included Samuel Lee, a doctoral candidate at McGill University studying organ performance, and Aleksanteri Wallius, a first-year master’s student at the Sibelius Academy.
The Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition welcomes the organ world’s brightest young talents to compete for the $40,000 Pierre S du Pont First Prize, the largest cash prize of any organ competition in the world. The next competition will take place in 2026. The Longwood Organ is the largest residential organ in the world, with 10,010 pipes and 146 ranks.
For information about Longwood Gardens: longwoodgardens.org.
Photo courtesy Longwood Gardens.
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