The preselection round jury consists of Kati Hämäläinen, Kari Jussila, and Olli Porthan. 

In the competition proper (first round and final round) the jury members are Edoardo Bellotti (Italy), Paolo Crivellaro, Kari Jussila (Finland), Jacques van Oortmerssen (The Netherlands), Olli Porthan (Finland), and David Sanger (Great Britain). Kati Hämäläinen will be chairing the jury.  

The chair will not take part in judging. Members of the jury are not allowed to judge any of their own students. Their judging is private and final. Judging will follow a separate set of rules.

 

 

Edoardo Bellotti (Milan, Italy) is well renowned as expert of Renaissance and Baroque keyboard music, especially improvisation and continuo technique. He teaches Historical Organ and Improvisation in Germany at the Musikhochschule of Trossingen and at the Hochschule für Kunst und Musik of Bremen, and is invited for seminaries and master-classes at several music institutions and universities in Europe, USA, Canada, Japan and Korea.

Bellotti combines performing in concerts and recitals with musicological research, publishing articles and texts, critical editions of keyboard compositions of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries and participating, with personal contributions, in international conferences.

He has been invited as member of juries in international organ competitions and as consultant for the restoration of historical organs. Since 2001 he is Artistic Director of the Smarano International Organ Academy (Italy). He has made several recordings on historical instruments, which have obtained critical acclaim.

 

Paolo Crivellaro
After completing his studies in organ and piano in Milan and Basel, Paolo Crivellaro initiated a brilliant career as concert organist in important festivals (Philharmonie Berlin, Grote St. Bavokerk of Haarlem, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Istanbul International Music Festival, Meistersingerhalle Nürnberg, Semana Órganos de Granada, International Festival Sao Paulo-Brazil, Philharmonia Krachowien, Lahti Organ Festival, Vienna Stephansdom, Tokyo Cathedral, etc.) and in the major cities of Europe (Rome, Paris, London, Stockholm, Vienna, Madrid, Helsinki, Oslo, Bruxelles, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Lisbon, etc.). A number of concerts have been broadcasted by National TVs and Radios as well or recorded on CDs.

Crivellaro is regularly invited to hold master-classes for academies and universities as guest professor (Thüringische Orgelakademie, Académie d’Orgue de Fribourg, Accademia di Musica Italiana per Organo di Pistoia, Academia de Órgano en Andalucía, OrganArt of Gothenburg, Tokyo Organ Academy, Sibelius Academy Helsinki, etc.) or in the panel of important organ competitions (Odense, Toulouse, Linz, Innsbruck, Prague, Freiberg, Füssen, Alkmaar, etc.). Since 2001 he is Professor for Organ at the “Universität der Künste” of Berlin.

Between 1978 and 1992 Crivellaro was responsible for the cataloguing of 215 historic organs for the Italian Trust for Artistic and Historical Treasures. His experience in the field of organ history includes lectures and articles, some of them translated for international organ magazines. Recently he has written the entry “Italian Organ” in the “Lexikon der Orgel”, edited by Dr. H. Busch (Laaber 2007).

 
Kati Hämäläinen studied the organ and the harpsichord at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, during the years 1964-1972. She continued with her hapsichord studies in London, and with Kenneth Gilbert. She has also studied early French, Spanish and Italian organ music in several master classes. She completed her Doctor of Arts in Music studies at the Sibelius Academy with French harpsichord and organ music of the Baroque with special mention "cum laude". 

Hämäläinen has performed throughout Finland as  soloist, chamber musician, with orchestras, and as conductor. She has also performed in Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, the former Czechoslovakia, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France. She has recorded for radio and television companies in Finland and in Central Europe, and for Finnish record companies.

Hämäläinen is also a researcher in early music performange practice. As Senior Assistant she tutors doctoral students at the Sibelius-Academy in Helsinki.

 

Kari Jussila studied organ at the Sibelius Academy under Enzio Forsblom. In 1966 Jussila received his Organ Diploma and also graduated as a church musician. He has later enhanced his studies in several masterclasses in Finland and abroad and studied privately in Geneva under Guy Bovet and in Paris under Marie-Claire Alain.

After his Debut of 1966 in Helsinki, he has given recitals regularly in Finland and in the other Nordic Countries as well as in several European countries, Russia and U.S.A. He has premiered over 40 organ and chamber music compositions and made several first and other recordings for the Finnish Radio as well as making many organ and chamber music records. He received first prize in the 1973 Helsinki national organ competition. 

Kari Jussila has taught organ at the Sibelius Academy since 1966. In 1983 he received a lectorate and since the autumn of 1998 he has been the acting Professor of Organ music. Since 1972 he has also taught organ at the post graduate training courses for church musicians in Kuopio and Järvenpää and since 1980 at the Parainen Organ festival.

 
Jacques van Oortmerssen  began his musical studies at the Rotterdam Conservatoire, studying the organ with André Verwoerd. He earned the
distinction ‘cum laude’ for his final examination and was given a special prize for improvisation.
Between 1974 and 1976 he studied with Marie-Claire Alain in Paris, and was awarded the Prix d´Excellence in 1976. In 1977 he received his degree as a piano soloist, and in the same year he was awarded first prize at the Dutch National Improvisation Competition.

Since 1979 he has been Professor of Organ at the Sweelinck Conservatoire in Amsterdam, where his organ class attracts students from many different countries. In 1982 he succeeded Gustav Leonhardt as ‘Organiste Titulaire’ of the Waalse Kerk in Amsterdam.

In addition to being a visiting professor at the University of Göteborg, the Conservatoire of Lyon and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, he has visited conservatories and universities worldwide as a guest teacher and recitalist. For the academic year 1993/94 he became Betts Fellow in Organ Studies at Oxford University.

As a recitalist he has appeared in many international festivals like the BBC proms. His interpretations of Bach and early music have brought him widespread fame. He is also active as a comproser and organ consultant.The complete organ works of Brahms and C.P.E. Bach (BIS) feature among his many recordings for various international recording and broadcast companies. In 1994 Jacques van Oortmerssen started recording the complete organ works of J.S. Bach on the most important historical organs in Europe (Challenge Records).

 
Olli Porthan studied organ at the Sibelius Academy under Enzio Forsblom and under Jacques van Oortmerssen at the Sweelinck Conservatoire in Amsterdam. After receiving his diploma, he gave his debut recital at the Finlandia-hall in 1983. He received first prize in the 1980 Lahti organ competition. Porthan has given concerts in Finland and in the other Nordic Countries as well as in several European countries. He has made several radio recordings and performed on television, in addition to recording baroque organ works and chamber music.

Porthan has taught organ music at the Sibelius Academy since 1980 and as professor since 1988. He has acted as chairman for the Organum Society during 1986-1990. Porthan´s expertise has been widely used in various organ building projects (also the Kotka organ). Since 1992 Porthan has been artistic leader of the ”Janakkalan barokkikesä” music festival. He acted as leader of the Sibelius Academy Church Music Department in 1997- 2002.

 
David Sanger was educated at Eltham College and the Royal Academy of Music and became well known as an organ recitalist when he won First Prize in two international competitions: St Alban's, England in 1969 and Kiel, Germany in 1972. His teachers have included Susi Jeans, Marie-Claire Alain and Anton Heiller.

He has toured many countries as recitalist - Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Italy, France, Russia, Iceland, the United States, Mexico and South Korea - as well as giving many recitals in the British Isles, notably at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, The Royal Festival Hall, the City of London Festival, the Bath Festival, the Chester Festival, the West-Riding Cathedrals' Festival, and many similar occasions. He has given Master Classes in many places including Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo, and was 'Headmaster' of the Church Music Seminar in Bergen for fourteen years. He is frequently partnered by Hans Fagius from Sweden for organ duet concerts.

As a recording artist he has made over 20 CDs, all of which have received favourable reviews. His debut on the organ was with Polydor (DG Début Series) with Bach and Franck recorded in Munich. He recorded the complete organ works of César Franck at the Katarina Church in Stockholm (before the fire) for BIS. His Meridian recordings of Vierne's Six Organ Symphonies have received wide acclaim and he has embarked on recordings of the complete organ works of Bach. The most recent Bach CDs were recorded on the newly constructed, historic-style, Carsten Lund organ in Copenhagen's Garnisons Church.

Recently with Meridian he has recorded a selection of trifles by Lefébure-Wély, this latter CD recorded on the recent Cavaillé-Coll style instrument at Exeter College, Oxford, for which instrument David Sanger also acted as Consultant. Other recent projects as consultant include new, rebuilt or restored organs at Bromley Parish Church, Haileybury College, St Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Sheffield Cathedral and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Sanger has appeared in the jury of many international organ competitions; St Alban's, Paisley, Speyer, Biarritz, Alkmaar, Odense Nürnberg and Lucerne.

For some years he was professor of organ at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and chairman of the organ department there from 1987-89. Between 1989 and 1997 he was a Consultant Professor at the RAM. He was guest professor for a period of two years at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen. Currently, he is a Visiting Tutor in organ studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, and teacher of organ at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He has had many successful students at international competition level, including two winners at the Calgary International Organ Competition.

From time to time, he composes music for organ, as well as for strings and choirs.

He has written an organ tutor in two volumes for beginners, entitled Play the Organ, which has become the most widely used in Britain in recent years.