Organ Recital: Thomas Dahl

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
from The Musical Offering, BWV 1079
   Ricercare a 6 (transc. Jean Guillou, 1964)

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
from Eleven Chorale Preludes, Op. 122 (1896)
   4. “Herzlich tut mich erfreuen”

Jean Guillou (b. 1930)
Säya (L’Oiseau bleu), op. 50 (1993)

Thomas Dahl (b. 1964)
Improvisation on a submitted theme


Works of Bach and Reger, the French symphonic repertory and the art of improvisation are at the core of Thomas Dahl’s organ recital programs.

Since the age of eighteen, his concert career has taken him all over Europe, to the United States, Japan and Egypt. He has performed in such venues as Notre-Dame in Paris, Thomaskirche in Leipzig, the St Petersburg Philharmonic Hall and Saint Thomas Church in New York. Mr Dahl has taught courses and seminars at conservatories around Europe and in the United States. To date he has directed five Hamburg Master Courses in Organ at Hauptkirche St. Petri. In 2012-2013 he held a teaching position for organ improvisation at the Cologne School of Music.

Thomas Dahl studied church music, composition, music pedagogy, musicology and organ performance in Hamburg, Stuttgart, Paris and Chicago. Dahl finished his studies with six diplomas including the concert exam in organ performance under Jon Laukvik and the Prix d’excellence under Daniel Roth. Other significant organ teachers were Heinz Wunderlich with whom he studied the major organ works by Max Reger, Willibald Bezler, Wolfgang Rübsam and Jean Guillou.

He has been a prize winner or finalist in seven international organ-playing and improvisation competitions. In 2016, he won the First Prize and the Audience Prize at the AGO’s National Competition of Organ Improvisation in Houston.

In 1996 Thomas Dahl was appointed Director of Music and Principal Organist at Hauptkirche St. Petri, Hamburg, the oldest of the five main churches, where he is a successor of Telemann and C.P.E. Bach.