Summer Organ Festival
The 2026 Summer Organ Festival will consist of six concerts, running from Tuesday 28 July to Tuesday 1 September.
Six soloists, both Belgian and international, will captivate you with music ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach to Maurice Ravel. One of the recitals will be devoted to improvisation, a discipline so closely associated with the pipe organ. The influence of jazz on organ music will also be one of the festival’s themes!
Furthermore, in this year marking the 800th anniversary of the Gothic Cathedral of Saints Michael and Gudula, the life of Saint Gudula will be sketched out in six scenes through a composition or improvisation at each concert. The name ‘Sancta Gudulæ’ has a musical equivalent (La=A, Si=B, Do=C, etc.), which will serve as the common thread linking these evocations.
The six soloists will perform a wide variety of styles, and for your enjoyment and comfort, you will be able to watch them perform on a big screen.
Welcome, everyone!
28/07 – Rie Hiroe (J)
Professor of Organ at Tokyo University of the Arts
Programme : « Per pugnem ad lucem »
04/08 – Xavier Deprez (B)
Principal organist at Brussels Cathedral
Programme : “Is this Jazz ?”
Xavier Deprez has put together a programme featuring jazz-influenced organ works spanning from the late 19th century to the present day.
The works of Joseph Jongen, Olivier Messiaen, Jehan Alain, Louis Vierne and the American composer Florence Price are characterised by this style.
Xavier Deprez will improvise a tribute to Saint Gudula’s childhood, before performing his latest composition, the *Kyotoccata* – a piece that is also steeped in ‘blue notes’ and syncopated rhythms.
Summer Organ Festival
11/08 – Franz Josef Stoiber (D)
Principal organist at Regensburg Cathedral
Programme : Improvisation
Franz Josef Stoiber is a leading figure in the world of organ improvisation.
He practises his art in all the musical forms characteristic of the organ repertoire, such as the Suite, the Prelude and Fugue, the Five-part Mass, the Variations on a Chorale and the Passacaglia.
He will, of course, improvise a retelling of the story of Saint Gudula as a young nun, focusing in particular on the famous episode in which the devil blows on the Brussels saint’s lantern, trying in vain to blow it out.
Summer Organ Festival
18/08 – Erwin Wiersinga (NL)
Principal organist at the A-kerk in Groningen
Programme: ‘A Musical Journey through Belgium, France and the Netherlands’
Erwin Wiersinga is the proud organist of the Schnitger organ (17th century) at the A-Kerk. His eclectic musical style extends beyond the Baroque repertoire. He will take us on a journey through the sonic aesthetics of the 19th and 20th centuries, featuring the Belgian composers Paul de Maleingreau, Floor Peeters and Joseph Jongen; the French composers Jean Langlais, Henri Nibelle, Jehan Alain and Maurice Ravel (transcribed for the organ by Erwin); and finally, the Dutch composers Bert Matter, Hendrik Andriessen and Hayo Boerema. Expect an extraordinary variety of gentle, charming and poetic modal music!
Summer Organ Festival
25/08 – Benoît Mernier (B)
Organ teacher at the Brussels Conservatoire
Programme : « Bach Heritage »
Benoît Mernier has put together a programme centred on the timeless Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach not only left a profound mark on his own era – through both his monumental organ repertoire and his cantatas and Passions – but also on subsequent generations. Discover Johann Sebastian Bach in the transcriptions produced by the French organ school through the works of Charles-Marie Widor, Marcel Dupré and André Isoir, and the masterful works that the Leipzig Cantor inspired in Johannes Brahms and César Franck.
Summer Organ Festival
01/09 – Bart Jacobs (B)
Principal organist at Brussels Cathedral
Programme : « Stylus phantasticus »
The Stylus Phantasticus (fantastic style) describes a musical style that is both theatrical and rhetorical, surprising in its use of recitative, yet also characterised by the rigour of the fugue form – typical of the musical world of Baroque North Germany. Bart Jacobs will perform works by the leading composers of this northern school, including Nicolaus Bruhns, Franz Tunder, Matthias Weckmann, Georg Dietrich Leyding, Georg Böhm, Dietrich Buxtehude and, of course, Johann Sebastian Bach himself – particularly in this work recently rediscovered at the Royal Library in Brussels, the Chaconne in D minor.
Summer Organ Festival
Every Tuesday, the cathedral is open for the Summer Organ Festival from 7.15 pm.
The performers’ act is projected onto a large screen.
Welcome !