Organ Matinee with Arvid Gast and the Brass of the Berliner Philharmoniker

Arvid Gast is professor of organ and director of the sacred music department at the University of Music in Lübeck and titular organist at Lübeck’s St. Jacob’s Church, with its outstanding historic organ. He also gives concerts and teaches in many European countries as well as in Asia, the US and South America. He has performed regularly with Joachim Pliquett, the long-time principal trumpet of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, since 1979. Born in Bremen, Arvid Gast studied organ and sacred music in Hanover. While still a student, he won several organ competitions and assumed the post of organist and choir director at St. Nicholas’s Church in Flensburg in 1990. From 1993 to 2004, he was professor of organ at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig. In 2007, Arvid Gast founded the Dieterich Buxtehude International Competition, which is held every three years in Lübeck. He also serves as a juror at renowned competitions in Tokyo, Graz, Leipzig, Boston and Alkmaar. He was a visiting professor at the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio (US) in 2019.

The Brass Ensemble of the Berliner Philharmoniker has been appearing as a chamber music ensemble since the mid-1950s. The octet made up of four trumpets and four trombones was later expanded to include a tuba and a horn as well as an additional trumpet and trombone. Naturally, the musicians also play other instruments, ranging from the high B flat trumpet to the bass trumpet and the contrabass trombone. The Ensemble is noted for its nuanced blowing technique and the beautiful tone of the German instruments. The standard instrumentation is suitable for works of the Renaissance and the Baroque period, and the repertoire now includes commissioned works as well. For example, Hans Werner Henze composed the Sonata per otto ottoni (1983) for the Ensemble, and Dieter Siebert wrote his eleven-part Rondo für Blech (1992) for them. Since then, the musicians have also incorporated adaptations of classical works as well as pop and jazz arrangements into their programmes. Their successful concert appearances have taken the Brass Ensemble to many European musical capitals, to festivals and on tours to Japan.