Abbey Hosts Free Performance from French Organist

International award winning organist Emmanuel Culcasi will perform at Saint Joseph Abbey Church on Sunday, Feb. 17 at 3 p.m., located at 75376 River Road in Covington. It is free and open to the public. Culcasi is currently the Young Artist in Residence at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.

Trained as a musician and involved in educational science research, Culcasi is planning a versatile career as a concertist, collaborative scientist, and educator. He has performed at many festivals and recital series as a pianist or as organist throughout Europe. Culcasi is currently an organ teacher in the Music School of Bouc-Bel-Air.

Born in 1993 in Montpellier, France, Culcasi began his musical studies at age six in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille in piano performance under the instruction of Michel Bourdoncle and in the organ classes of Chantal De Zeeuw and André Rossi. He obtained a first prize in piano at age 14 and in organ at age 16.

He graduated from Lumière University Lyon 2 with a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance and a Bachelor’s Degree in musicology. He earned his Master’s Degree in organ performance at the National Superior Conservatory of Lyon, France.

Upon being awarded in 2014 a two-year research fellowship, he attended the CNRS-Aix-Marseille University and began a master’s degree research program focusing on the impact of music training on the brain’s structural plasticity and long-term memory interactions.

He is also in the second year of his master’s degree program in music composition at National Superior Conservatory of Paris in music writing. Culcasi is learning music pedagogy as a graduate teaching assistant in piano, with a research program aiming at defining improved music-based therapies to help deaf children and children with autism.

In 2018 he was appointed as one of the organists of the Sainte Marie Madeleine’s Church of Martigues and at Basilique Notre-Dame-de la Garde in Marseille. In May 2018, Culcasi was awarded First Prize (Grand Prix d’Orgue) at the International Competition Jean-Louis-Florentz - Académie des Beaux-Arts in Angers among 17 candidates of eight nationalities.