Juror Bios

Bernard Foccroulle:

Bernard Foccroulle began his international career as an organist in the mid-1970s, performing a wide repertoire ranging from Renaissance to contemporary. He has provided dozens of world premieres, and deepened in particular the organ works of J. S. Bach.

His discography includes over thirty solo recordings on CD including a complete organ works of Buxtehude that has collects numerous awards. Foccroulle maintains an active performing schedule and led the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, one of opera's most prominent organizations on the international scene, until 2007. In April 2006, he was appointed director of the Festival d'Art Lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence. Since 2010 he has been professor of organ at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels.

His compositions are primarily for the organ and voice and include works such as “Am Rande der Nacht”, a cycle of seven songs for soprano, chorus and orchestra on poems by Rilke, and a song cycle on poems by Verlaine.

Jon Laukvik:

Jon Laukvik studied organ at the University of Music in Cologne with Michael Schneider and harpsichord with Hugo Ruf. He also studied organ privately with Marie-Claire Alain in Paris. In 1980, he was named professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart and since 2001 he has been a professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. He is also a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music, London as well as being a touring performer and masterclass instructor throughout the world.

Laukvik is author of the highly successful organ tutor entitled Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, published by Carus-Verlag. A second book, on the performance of Romantic organ music (The Romantic Era), was published by Carus-Verlag in December 2000. His compositions include works for solo organ, organ with other instruments as well as vocal and instrumental works.

Kimberly Marshall:

Kimberly Marshall maintains an active career as a concert organist, performing regularly around the world. She currently holds the Patricia and Leonard Goldman Endowed Professorship in Organ at Arizona State University, having previously taught at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and Stanford University, California. Winner of the St. Albans Competition in 1985, she has been invited to play in prestigious venues and has recorded for Radio-France, the BBC, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In 1986, Kimberly Marshall received the D.Phil. in Music from the University of Oxford and is a frequest lecturer. Her compact disc recordings feature music of the Italian and Spanish Renaissance, French Classical and Romantic periods, and works by J. S. Bach. She has also released a recording of works for organ by female composers, “Divine Euterpe,” that includes music by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Elfrida Andrée, and Ethyl Smyth.

Kimberly Marshall was a recitalist and workshop leader during many National Conventions of the American Guild of Organists. Her latest recording project, a CD/DVD set entitled A Fantasy through Time, was released on the Loft label in 2009, and she was a member of the jury for the Sweelinck competition in Amsterdam in 2010.

Jacques van Oortmerssen:

Jacques van Oortmerssen has been a prominent figure in the organ world for many years. He is internationally renowned for his versatility and particularly for his performances of the music of J. S. Bach. Van Oortmerssen studied with André Verwoerd, Elly Salomé and later with Marie-Claire Alain in Paris. He was awarded the Prix d’Excellence in 1976. He was appointed Professor of Organ at the Amsterdam Conservatory in 1979, at an exceptionally young age, and, in 1982, succeeded Gustav Leonhardt as Organiste-Titulaire of the Waalse Kerk in Amsterdam.

Jacques van Oortmerssen enjoys an international reputation as both soloist and pedagogue performing regularly and invited to teach at universities and conservatories throughout the world. A former visiting Professor of Organ at the universities of Gothenburg and Helsinki, as well as at the Conservatory of Lyon, van Oortmerssen was nominated Guest Professor of Organ at the University of Oxford during the academic year 1993/94. As a recording artist, van Oortmerssen has featured on more than 50 CD releases for prominent international labels, as well as broadcasting on both radio and television. He is presently under contract to Challenge Classics, for whom he is recording the complete organ works of J. S. Bach; a project which has generated significant international interest and recognition.

David Yearsley:

David Yearsley was educated at Harvard College and Stanford University, where he received his Ph.D. in Musicology in 1994. As a Professor of Musicology and Performance practice at Cornell University he continues to pursue his interests in the performance, literature and history of northern European music among other activities. His musicological works include Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint (Cambridge, 2002) and Bach's Feet: the Organ Pedals in European Culture (Cambridge, 2012) and he is currently working on a monograph entitled The Musical Lives of Anna Magdalena Bach. David's musical and musicological interests extend to the Elizabethans, the Italian keyboard traditions of the seventeenth century, Handel's operas, film music, musical travels, and the intersections between music and politics.  The only musician ever to win all major prizes at the Bruges Early Music Festival competition, David's recordings of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century organ music are available from Loft Recordings and Musica Omnia.