Renée Anne Louprette - Bach Clavier-Übung III, The Pedal Settings (2023)

American organist Renée Anne Louprette maintains an international career as recitalist, conductor, collaborative musician, and teacher. She is associated with several distinguished music programs in the New York City area, having served as Associate Director of Music at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, Associate Director of Music and the Arts at Trinity Wall Street, Organist and Associate Director at the Unitarian Church of All Souls, and Director of Music at the Church of Notre Dame. She is director of the American Guild of Organists’ National Competition in Organ Improvisation.

Louprette is a U.S.-Romanian Fulbright Scholar who spent the Fall 2022 season in Brașov, Transylvania, surveying the preservation of historic Romanian pipe organs. She is Assistant Professor of Music and College Organist at Bard College in New York where she directs the Bard Baroque Ensemble and leads an annual Bach cantata series. She has directed the organ program at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University in New Jersey since 2013 and is a former faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music, The Hartt School of the University of Hartford, and the John J. Cali School of Music of Montclair State University.

Louprette’s European festival engagements have included Internationaler Orgelsommer, Stuttgart, Germany; Magadino, Switzerland; In Tempore Organi, Italy; Ghent and Hasselt, Belgium; Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Uppsala and Lund cathedrals, Sweden; Bordeaux Cathedral and Toulouse Les Orgues, France; Cantus Ecclesiae in Bucharest and Organ Nights in Brașov, Romania. In 2018, she made her solo debuts at the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. She has performed throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, including at Westminster Abbey and the Temple Church in London, St. Giles Cathedral Edinburgh and Dunblane Cathedral (Scotland), Galway Cathedral and Dún Laoghaire (Ireland).

Her recording of J. S. Bach’s “Great Eighteen Chorales” on the Metzler organ of Trinity College, Cambridge, England, was named a classical music Critics’ Choice 2014 by The New York Times. “Une voix française | A French Voice” – her recording of 20th-century French repertoire at St. Ignatius Loyola in New York – received top reviews in British journals Choir & Organ and Organists’ Review and the Dutch journal Orgelnieuws. Her current recording of Bach’s Clavier-Übung III performed on the Craighead-Saunders organ of Christ Church, Rochester, New York – modeled after the 1776 Casparini organ in Vilnius, Lithuania – will be released on the Acis label in September 2023 in celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Craighead-Saunders instrument.

Louprette has collaborated with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the American Brass Quintet, Voices of Ascension, Clarion Music Society, American Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Dance Project, The Dessoff Choirs, Oratorio Society of New York, Berkshire Bach Society, and Piffaro, among others. She has partnered with traditional Irish musician Ivan Goff, with whom she debuted at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, presenting the world premiere of a new work for uilleann pipes and organ by Eve Beglarian, commissioned for the Louprette-Goff duo by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The duo released their album “Bright Vision” to critical acclaim in 2019. Additional collaborations have included duo recitals with American saxophonist Paul Cohen and Romanian saxophonist Zoltán Réman. She has appeared as concerto soloist with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane, Australia, The Orchestra Now at the Bard Music Festival “Nadia Boulanger and her World,” and the Auburn Symphony Orchestra at Benaroya Hall, Seattle.

Louprette has conducted performances in the greater New York City area accompanied by members of Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola, including the acclaimed U.S. premiere of John Tavener’s Requiem as co-conductor with Kent Tritle. She was selected as a conducting fellow of the Mostly Modern Festival in 2019, premiering several new works with the American Modern Ensemble.

Renée Anne Louprette holds a Master of Music degree in conducting from Bard College Conservatory, a Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude in piano performance and Graduate Professional Diploma in organ performance from The Hartt School, University of Hartford. She was awarded a Premier Prix – mention très bien from the Conservatoire National de Région de Toulouse, France and a Diplôme Supérieur in organ performance from the Centre d’Études Supérieures de Musique et de Danse de Toulouse where she studied with Michel Bouvard and Jan Willem Jansen (interpretation) and Philippe Lefebvre (improvisation). She completed additional studies in organ with Dame Gillian Weir, James David Christie, and Guy Bovet.