Simon Nieminski Organ Concert

Assistant Director of Music, Simon Nieminski, gives his 3rd organ concert at St Mary’s Cathedral.

Admission is Free, with a retiring collection.

‘THE INFERNO’
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Simon will play a programme culminating with the work which composer Max Reger described as his most difficult, the spectacular Symphonic Fantasia & Fugue, inspired by Dante’s ‘Inferno’ and tackled by few organists. The rest of the programme includes music from Bach to Hakim, from Europe to Lebanon.

Naji Hakim (b. 1955) – Ouverture Libanaise
J.S. Bach – Prelude and ‘Fiddle’ Fugue in D, BWV539
John Ireland (1879-1962) – Capriccio
Giles Swayne (b. 1946) – Mr Bach’s Bottle Bank
William Byrd (1538-1623) – A Fancie (My Ladye Nevell’s Booke)
Max Reger (1873-1916) – Symphonic Fantasia and Fugue, Op. 57, ‘The Inferno’

SIMON NIEMIŃSKI was born in London and descended from an unlikely mixture of Edwardian Japanese acrobats, Lancastrian Music Hall artistes and a Polish army veteran. He studied in London at the Royal College of Music, at Cambridge University and as Organ Scholar of York Minster. Before moving to Sydney last January, he was Organist of St Mary’s Metropolitan Cathedral and Director of Music at The Robin Chapel in Edinburgh, having previously been Organist and Master of the Music at Edinburgh’s other (Episcopal) St Mary’s Cathedral.
As a recitalist, he has played at venues around the UK and beyond. Recent concert engagements have included recitals at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, St Florian’s Abbey in Austria, The Royal Canadian College of Organists’ national convention in Ontario, and Washington National Cathedral, USA. For the last two years, he was the featured recitalist in the International Organ Festival in Japan. Over the airwaves he has featured in programmes including The Organist Entertains on BBC Radio 2, to Choral Evensong several times live on Radio 3, and Pipedreams in the USA.
He has recorded 12 solo CDs to date, and reviews have included: “This is a splendid release… There is a lot of poetry here.” (The American Record Guide) and “Simon Niemiński’s playing is utterly convincing and at one stroke establishes him as a recording artist of the first rank.” (Organists’ Review.) Recent recordings include the première of Giles Swayne’s monumental solo organ work Stations of the Cross, and a disc of works by ‘light’ music composer Alfred Hollins and his contemporaries (recorded in St Louis, Missouri) for Hollins’ 150th anniversary. His latest release is of Eugène Reuchsel’s La Vie du Christ and Bouquet de France, recorded on the Rieger organ at The High Kirk of St Giles, Edinburgh.
Simon can be found online at www.niemin.ski.