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ORGAN SYMPOSIUM: Organcore [Day 1]
Today the Orgelpark introduces an innovation: a three-day artistic research symposium, focusing on 'organcore'. Researcher-artist Annie Garlid coined the term in 2024 to name a rather specific new way of music-making on organs. Its characteristic is that nothing and an amazing lot happens at the same time: sounds stand still or move only very slowly, meanwhile opening the audience's ears to the myriad of micro movements that appear to make these sounds exist at all. Whereas this musicking style remains remote to traditionally trained organists, its main creators have become world famous, identifying as a new type of organists. Well-known are for example Ellen Arkbro, Kali Malone, Maria W Horn, and Claire M Singer. What connects them and all other organcorists is their love for the liveliness of the sounds organ pipes can emit.
Some of these founding artists invest, just like Garlid, serious amounts of time in researching this new way of making music. A fascinating result is Sarah Davachi's PhD thesis: she got her doctor degree in 2025,. Her book documents a thorough investigation of what she calls 'critical organology', generating new understandings of what, for example, timbre (sound color) means to music. Both Garlid and Davachi will address the audience with – what we like to call – musical lectures on Saturday afternoon.
The Orgelpark presents the organcore symposium in close cooperation with 4D Sound, established in Amsterdam, but also active in Berlin and London.
The rationale behind this is that organcore happens to follow a second track, next to the pipe organ one: organcore artists appear inspired to work with multiple speaker systems as well. The system 4D Sound developed is comprised of a huge number – several dozens – of omni-speakers (speakers that speak in all direction instead of just firing forward). Just like pipes, they are able, by being so many, to immerse audiences, and, again just like pipes, they also unveil captivating micro-differences when sounds are allowed to stay for a while. In fact, the 4D Sound system is an instrument in itself, no less location dependent and location identifying than pipe organs. The 4D Sound system will sound solo but also in combination with the organs at the Orgelpark. A promising exploration of the rabbit holes this combination may give access to, will be experiencable on Friday night when turntablist NikNak presents a show – not least as she will spin traditional organ-LP's next to discs from her own collection.
P R O G R A M M E
THURSDAY JUNE 4TH
16.00 WELCOME & MUSIC: Richard Thomas / Hans Fidom & Jasmine Karimova
16.15 MUSICAL LECTURE: On Musicking / Jakob Lkk
16.45 MUSIC: Organ & voice / Amarante Nat
17.15 MUSIC: 4D sound / Robert Curgenven
20.15 MUSIC: Maria W Horn and Sarah Davachi
FRIDAY JUNE 5TH
10.30 4D Sound Masterclass: Poul Holleman
16.00 MUSIC: 4D sound / Casimir Geelhoed
16.45 MUSIC: Organ / Claire M Singer
20.15 MUSIC: 4D Sound / Claire M Singer
21.00 ROUND TABLE / With Richard Thomas
22.00 MUSIC: Turntabling / NikNak
SATURDAY JUNE 6TH
14.15 LECTURES & DISCUSSIONS
• MUSICAL LECTURE / Sound Rebellion + Jürgen Scriba
• KEYNOTE: Organcore / Annie Garlid
• MUSICAL LECTURE: Composing for organ / Kara-Lis Coverdale
• MUSICAL LECTURE: Loving the Van Straten Organ / Sarah Davachi
• MUSICAL LECTURE: 4D & Composing / Casimir Geelhoed
• LOOKING BACK & WRAPPING UP: Benjamin Tassie
20.15 MUSIC: Kara-Lis Coverdale
The traditional International Orgelpark Symposium – lectures, discussions, presentations, workshops, musics – will from now on take place in Februari: the next one is scheduled on Februari 18th, 19th and 20th 2027.