Geneviève Soly ~ Organ Recital

The Paul Creston Award Celebration

St. Malachy’s – The Actors’ Chapel will host the 2024 Paul Creston Award Celebration honoring Geneviève Soly.

Mme. Soly will offer an organ recital that will include works by Buxtehude, Bach, Graupner, Organ Music of New-France — The Montréal Organ Book (17th century), and liturgical works by Dupré and Brahms. Additional choral music will be sung by the Actors’ Chapel Choir.

This award is given annually to a distinguished musician who embodies the spirit of its namesake, Paul Creston (Organist of St. Malachy’s – The Actors’ Chapel from 1934–67), and exhibits excellence in the arts, and is a significant figure in sacred music and the performing arts. Past recipients of the award include: Frederick Swann (2009), Bruce Neswick (2010), David Higgs (2012), Janette Fishell (2014), Stephen Tharp (2015), Jennifer Higdon (2016), Timothy Sun and Cindy Ho (2017), Dr. Jennifer Pascual (2018), Dr. John Romeri (2019), and David Briggs (2022).

A wine reception with hors d'oeuvres will follow the program. All are welcome.

Friday, May 3 at 7:30 pm

Admission: Free-will offering

St. Malachy's Church, 239 West 49th Street, Manhattan

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Geneviève Soly is one of the central figures of baroque music in Quebec. She is well- known for her many talents: as a musical soloist performer on the organ and harpsichord as well as musical director of Les Idées heureuses; as a musicologist for her major contribution to the rediscovery of Christoph Graupner; as a pedagogue and sought-after speaker and lecturer and as an arts administrator who has been founding and directing Les Idées heureuses for 35 years. She was an Adjunct Professor of musicology at the Université de Montréal and had sit on several arts sector advisory councils.

Geneviève Soly was nine years old when she realized she was going to be a performer. This revelation came as she listened to an LP recording of Sviatoslav Richer playing Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke. Schumann remains one of the composers dearest to her heart.

Her tireless work for the dissemination of baroque music was recognized by the Prix Opus, awarded by the Conseil québécois de la musique in the category of Personnalité de l’année in 1997. She was named La Personnalité de la semaine by the Montreal daily La Presse in its April 2, 2006 edition. She was invited to sign the Livre d’or de la ville de Montreal at an official ceremony on May 6, 2010, in recognition of her international stature as an authority on Graupner. Previously, she won the Second Prize at Paul Hofhaimer Competition for early music (organ) in Insbruck (1978) and the First Prize at John Robb organ Competition in Montréal (1976).

In 2025, Breitkopf and Härtel will be publishing her edition of the first volume of Graupner’s works for harpsichord. She is the first Canadian editor to work for this publisher.

As a performer, besides hundreds of solo recitals, Geneviève Soly has played with gambist Jay Bernfeld, with violinist Viktoria Mullova and harpsichordist Andreas Staier. Since 2006, she has given solo performances at the Centre de musique baroque in Versailles, at the Bruges and Utrecht early music festivals, at BOZAR in Brussels, as well as in Modena, Pontoise, Basel, Frankfurt and Berlin. Her seven recordings of Graupner’s harpsichord music on ANALEKTA label have received international acclaim and numerous prizes.

Geneviève Soly is the twin sister of Isolde Lagacé, emerit director of the Bourgie Concert Hall at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. She is mother of well known humorist Arnaud Soly and percussionist Matthias Soly-Letarte.