Gillian Weir
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Dame Gillian Constance Weir DBE (born 17 January 1941) is an internationally-renowned organist.
She was a co-winner of the Auckland Star Piano Competition at 19, playing Mozart. A year later she won a scholarship of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in London. There she studied with the concert pianist Cyril Smith and the renowned organist Ralph Downes, and in her second year (1964) won the prestigious St. Albans International Organ Competition.
Her performance on this occasion was of a work by Olivier Messiaen at a time when his music was little-known outside France, and she became particularly associated with this composer; she has several time performed the complete works in series, and her recording for Collins Classics has been hailed as 'one of the major recording triumphs of the century'.
Weir made her début at the Royal Albert Hall while still a student, as soloist in the Poulenc Organ Concerto, on the opening night of the 1965 season of the Promenade Concerts, and in the same year at the Royal Festival Hall in recital, then the youngest organist to have played there. More recently she returned to the Albert Hall to make the first recording on the great organ after the 2004 rebuild.
Her fame as a performer is backed by her scholarly reputation; she is in constant demand as an adjudicator for the leading international competitions and as lecturer, broadcaster, teacher and writer, while her television appearances have reached large new audiences. Her repertoire is exceptional for its breadth and variety, stretching from the Renaissance to contemporary works; she has performed the complete organ works of Bach and others, as well as of Olivier Messiaen, and her pre-eminent position as Messiaen interpreter has been further underlined by her CD release of his complete organ works to great acclaim as well as by her contribution to Faber's The Messiaen Companion and other publications. Her series of six weekly recitals in Westminster Cathedral of Messiaen's organ works in 1998, the 90th anniversary of his birth, brought huge audiences and for her performances she was awarded The Evening Standard Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, the first organist to have been so honoured.
She has received a host of awards and honors worldwide, the most notable of which was presented in 1996 when she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the first organist to receive this accolade. She had previously been awarded a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 1989. Gillian Weir's six-part television series for the BBC in 1989 drew weekly audiences of two million in Britain, exceptional for an arts program, and has been repeated in many countries throughout the world.
Weir's artistry was marked in 1999 by the re-issue on CD of her series of Argo recordings, and her nomination by Classic CD magazine as one of the '100 Greatest Players of the Century and by the Sunday Times as one of the 1000 Music Makers of the Millennium. In December 2000 ITV's South Bank Show chronicled her worldwide activities as performer, teacher and recording artist in a highly acclaimed documentary.
She has also served as President of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, the Royal College of Organists (the first woman president) and the Incorporated Association of Organists (also the first woman president), and is also the Prince Consort Professor of Organ, Royal College of Music, London.
She has recently accepted the appointment of Distinguished Visiting Artist at the Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University (USA) for the 2005-06 academic year.
She was married to the late distinguished American organ builder Lawrence Phelps.
[edit] Awards and Accomplishments
- 1961: Scholarship from the Associated Board of Royal Schools of Music, London
- 1962-65: Various prizes at the Royal College of Music, London
- 1964: Winner of First Prize at the St. Alban's International Organ Competition, England
- 1965: Countess of Munster Award for study
- 1975: Elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, London (Hon. FRCO)
- 1977: First woman elected to the Council of the Royal College of Organists
- 1981: International Performer of the Year, elected by the American Guild of Organists, New York, NY
- 1981-83: First woman President of the Incorporated Association of Organists
- 1982: Elected Musician of the Year by the International Music Guide
- 1982: Elected Honorary Member of the International Music Sorority Sigma Alpha Iota
- 1983: Elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Canadian College of Organists (Hon FRCCO)
- 1983: Awarded Honorary Doctorate of Music from the University of Victoria, Wellington, New Zealand (Hon DMus)
- 1985: First musician to receive the Turnovsky Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts
- 1989: Created Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to music
- 1989: Elected Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, London (Hon.RAM)
- 1992-93: President of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, England
- 1993: Trustee of the Eric Thompson Charitable Trust for Organists and Organ Music
- 1994-96: First woman President of the Royal College of Organists, England
- 1996: Created DBE
- 1997-98: Visiting Professor of the Royal Academy of Music, London
- 1997: Awarded Honorary Doctorate by the University of Huddersfield (Hon D Litt)
- 1998: Awarded Silver Medal by the Albert Schweitzer Association (Sweden)
- 1998 - present: President of the Soloist's Ensemble
- 1998: Patron of the Oundle International Festival
- 1999: Appointed the Prince Consort Professor in Organ, Royal College of Music, London
- 1999: March 1999 - Winner of the Evening Standard Award for Outstanding Solo Performance in 1998
- 1999: July 1999 - Awarded Honorary Doctorate by Hull University (Hon DMus)
- 1999: Patron of Friends of Young Artists' Platform
- 1999 - present: Patron of the Cirencester Early Music Festival
- 2000: November 2000 - Elected Fellow of the Royal College of Music, London (FRCM)
- 2000: December 2000 - Subject of television documentary profile by the South Bank Show (ITV)
- 2001: February 2001 - Awarded Honorary Doctorate by Exeter University (Hon DMus)
- 2001: Awarded Honorary Doctorate by the University of Central England, Birmingham (Hon Doctor of the University)
- 2003: Awarded Honorary Doctorate by Leicester University (Hon D. Mus)
- 2004: Awarded Honorary Doctorate by Aberdeen University (Hon D. Mus)
