13 August 2023 at 20:00

Aleksandr Nisse, organ

Aleksandr Nisse is an organist and composer of Russian (St. Petersburg) and French (Paris) descent. Aleksandr spent his childhood years growing up in Hamburg and in the family ancestral home in Normandy, France. As a child Aleksandr was influenced by the legendary blind organist Helmut Walcha, who was his father's teacher, and by his aunt Danielle Salvignol-Nisse, a student of Jean Langlais and Gaston Litaize. Having studied piano with Valery Krol, Aleksandr went on to study organ with Susan Landale in Paris and continued his keyboard studies with Louis Robilliard at the Conservatoire National de Region de Lyon, where he was unanimously awarded "Premier Prix de Perfectionnement" with distinction. A scholarship for postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London followed where he studied under Nicolas Kynaston and Lionel Rogg.

He regularly performs concerts in Ireland, Switzerland, France and Germany and succeeded in obtaining an award from TU Dublin for a PhD in composition under the supervision of Prof. Gráinne Mulvey. His research area lies in the application of the exact partial pitches of the harmonic series. He has held positions in Terenure College, St Andrew’s Church Westland Row, Whitefriar Street Dublin and has recently been appointed as Titular Organist at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral Dublin. His recent recording, The Ascension, on the world-famous Selby Abbey organ, received 4 stars in the BBC Music Magazine and 5 stars in the Choir and Organ magazine.

As a composer he was commissioned in 2019 by the Hochschule der Künste Bern, Switzerland to write an Irish based piece for voice, strings and wind dynamical organ and dancers. Entitled Aiséirí this piece was performed as part of a dance production in Bern Minster in June 2019. His most recent piece NOTINTUNE was commissioned by the Crash Ensemble. A reflection on the impact of digital devices on society, the piece explores what happens when humans, distracted and out of tune with their natural selves and surroundings, lose empathy, a quality without which it is suggested our human civilization might cease to exist.