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Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU) and Terra Sancta Organ Festival have the pleasure of presenting the tenth edition of the SOL Festival (Semaine de l’Orgue au Liban | Lebanese Pipe Organ Week) from March 27 to April 4, 2025. Admission is free to all concerts.
The Lebanese Pipe Organ Week is the only festival in Lebanon to highlight this monumental instrument, played by renowned international organists and musicians. The festival takes place in different churches and venues in many areas of Lebanon (in this edition the concerts will be in Beirut, Zouk Mosbeh, Ajaltoun, Harissa and Tripoli) allowing the audience to explore different music repertoires. Thanks to the joint venture between Notre Dame University and Terra Sancta Organ Festival, the Lebanese Pipe Organ Week has strong local roots and, at the same time, an international dimension.
This year’s 10th anniversary of the SOL Festival coincides with another anniversary: the 70th birthday of the great Lebanese and French organist and composer Naji Hakim. With him and for him, we have organized a special concert in Beirut on April 4th in the church of the Sacred Heart College (Gemmaizeh) on the French organ “Debierre” (built in 1935, 90 years ago: another anniversary!), the organ on which Naji learned to play. In addition, as a birthday present, all organists will feature a piece by Naji Hakim in their program.
The opening on March 27th is entrusted to the Austrian organist and composer Wolfgang Reisinger, who will play on the Austrian organ “Rieger” of the National Evangelical Church of Beirut.
For the first time, a piano and organ duo will perform at the Sol Festival and in Lebanon since 1973. Two of the top Italian players of these instruments have been invited to this special event: Roberto Prosseda on piano and Eugenio Maria Fagiani on organ (Zouk Mosbeh, Church of Notre Dame de Louaizeh, March 31). Fagiani will also play on April 3 in the church of Mar Zachia in Ajaltoun with the Lebanese trumpeter Elie Njeim.
Soprano voice Louisa El Khoury and countertenor Matteo El Khoder will be the protagonists of the famous cantata by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi “Stabat Mater”, a musical meditation on the sorrows of the Virgin Mary under the cross (April 1, in the church of St. Francis in Tripoli El Mina; April 2, in the church of St. Anthony of Padua, Harissa).
Spanish Francisco Javier López García, titular organist of the Cathedral of Ávila (Spain), will close the SOL Festival 2025 on Sunday, April 6 at the National Evangelical Church of Beirut with the program “The Soul of Spain: Organ Music from the Renaissance to the Present”.
We are sure that Lebanese music lovers will appreciate our artistic proposals.
ADMISSION FREE TO ALL CONCERTS
Thursday, March 27, 8:00 pm
BEIRUT | National Evangelical Church
Wolfgang Reisinger (Austria), pipe organ
In collaboration with the Embassy of Austria
Monday, 31 March, 8:00 pm
ZOUK MOSBEH | Church of Notre Dame de Louaizeh – OMM
Roberto Prosseda (Italy), piano & Eugenio Maria Fagiani (Italy), pipe organ
Concert organized by the Italian Cultural Institute of Beirut in collaboration with the SOL Festival and with the patronage of the Italian Embassy in Lebanon
Tuesday, April 1, 7:00 pm
TRIPOLI (El Mina) | Latin Church of St. Francis – Custody of the Holy Land
Louisa El Khoury (Lebanon), soprano voice & Matteo El Khoder (Lebanon), countertenor voice
Wednesday, April 2, 6:00 pm
HARISSA | Church of St. Anthony – Custody of the Holy Land
Louisa El Khoury (Lebanon), soprano voice & Matteo El Khoder (Lebanon), countertenor
Thursday, April 3, 8:00 pm
AJALTOUN | Church of Mar Zakhia
Elie Njeim (Lebanon), trumpet & Eugenio Maria Fagiani (Italy), pipe organ
In collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Beirut and Ajaltoun Centre Culturel
Friday, April 4, 8:00 pm
BEIRUT Gemmaizeh | Collège des Frères, Sacré-Coeur
Nuit française pour les 70 ans de Naji Hakim
Naji Hakim (Lebanon/France), pipe organ
In collaboration with Institut Français Liban and the French Embassy
Sunday, April 6, 8:00 pm
BEIRUT | National Evangelical Church
Francisco Javier López García (Spain), pipe organ
In collaboration with the Embassy of Spain
Naji Subhy Paul Irénée Hakim est né à Beyrouth le 31 octobre 1955. Ancien élève du Collège du Sacré-Cœur de Beyrouth, il a poursuivi ses études musicales auprès de Jean Langlais (orgue) et Evelyne Aïello (direction d’orchestre), ainsi qu’au Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, remportant sept premiers prix. Titulaire d’une licence d’enseignement en orgue du Trinity College of Music de Londres, il a également remporté dix premiers prix internationaux d’orgue et de composition. En 1991, l’Académie des Beaux-Arts lui décerne le Prix André Caplet, et en 2009, il remporte le Premier Prix du Concours de Composition de Musique Sacrée de la Cathédrale de Monaco. De 1985 à 1993, il fut organiste titulaire de la Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre avant de succéder à Olivier Messiaen à l’église de la Trinité (1993-2008). Il a également enseigné l’analyse musicale au Conservatoire National de Région de Boulogne-Billancourt (1988-2019) et occupe actuellement un poste de visiting professor à la Royal Academy of Music de Londres. Ingénieur de l’École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Paris, il est membre de la Consociatio Internationalis Musicæ Sacræ de Rome et Docteur honoris causa de l’Université Pontificale Saint-Esprit de Kaslik, Liban. En 2007, Sa Sainteté le Pape Benoît XVI lui décerne l’Augustæ crucis insigne pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, en reconnaissance de son engagement et de son travail au service de l’Église et du Saint-Père. Son catalogue comprend des œuvres instrumentales, des œuvres symphoniques, ainsi que de la musique vocale. Naji Hakim est marié à Marie-Bernadette Dufourcet, organiste, compositrice et musicologue. Ils ont deux enfants : Katia-Sofía, poétesse, pianiste et musicologue, et Jean-Paul, avocat, pianiste et compositeur.
Wolfgang Reisinger studied church music and organ performance at the Vienna University of Music (1983-1993). Between 1987 and 1990 organist and choir director at the Baroque abbey of St. Florian (at Anton Bruckner’s organ). In 1987, he started his international career as interim cathedral organist at the Swedish Cathedral of Strängnäs in Sweden. Organist at St. Brigitta in Vienna since 1979. Between 2001 and 2003 he served as Director of Music at the Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and received his first doctorate in organ performance from the University of Kansas (2003). Another doctorate (musicology) followed in 2008 (University of Music in Vienna). Since 1986 Wolfgang Reisinger has been concertizing regularly in most European countries, e.g., in Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, Spain, Portugal, France; in Russia, China, South Korea, and the U.S.A. Wolfgang Reisinger has given a lot of master classes on Bach, French, and German Romantic organ music, Maurice Duruflé’s music, improvisation, and liturgical organ playing. He has recorded several CDs as organist and choir director. Jury member of various organ competitions (Moscow, 2012; Kaliningrad, 2023).
Wolfgang Reisinger has composed numerous works, primarily vocal music: psalm settings, motets, hymn arrangements, new sacred music, mass settings (German Mass, Missa Romantica), and some music for organ and piano. He has also served as chief editor for music publications with Doblinger, Vienna.
Professor of organ and improvisation at the Conservatory of sacred music in Vienna in 1990. Guest professor at the University of Music in Vienna and taught hymnology and figured bass at the University of Music in Graz, Austria. Guest lectures at various universities, Wolfgang Reisinger continues to direct international church music conferences (REJOICE, Austrian Week of New Sacred Music).
Roberto Prosseda is one of the most active and versatile Italian musicians on the current international scene. He gained international fame following his Decca CDs dedicated to the piano music of Felix Mendelssohn. Over the past twenty years Roberto has performed regularly with some of the world’s leading orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Moscow State Philharmonic, Santa Cecilia, Filarmonica della Scala, Brussels Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, Netherlands Symphony, Berliner Symphoniker, Staatskapelle Weimar, Calgary Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus. With the Gewandhaus Orchester conducted by Riccardo Chailly, he recorded the unpublished Concerto in E minor by Mendelssohn, published by Decca in September 2009. His recording of Mozart Sonatas, recorded on Fazioli piano with unequal Vallotti tuning (6 Decca CDs, 2015-18), has received considerable international acclaim. In 2022 Roberto completed the recording of Mozarts’ complete piano works in 11 CDs. Since 2011, he has also played the piano-pedalier in public, having rediscovered and presented in modern premieres various pieces by Alkan and the Concert by Charles Gounod for piano-pedalier and orchestra. Roberto Prosseda gave 100 concerts with the pedal piano, contributing to the rediscovery of the instrument and its repertoire. He is currently artistic director of Cremona Musica International Exhibitions (Italy) and of Patmos Chamber Music Festival (Greece), which he co-founded in 2022.
Renowned internationally for his impressive, enthralling and vibrant musical language, the Italian organist Eugenio Maria Fagiani performs regularly on the most important instruments in Europe, the Middle East, America, Asia and Russia. Besides his activity as a soloist, he holds a long-term collaboration with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano La Verdi, the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini (Parma) as well as the Orchestra Filarmonica della Fenice (Venezia). He has been directed by eminent conductors such as Jeffrey Tate, Riccardo Chailly, Xian Zhang, Vasily Petrenko and Stanislav Kochanovsky. Since 2008 he has been the Organist of the Franciscan Shrine of La Verna, Arezzo (IT) and in this position he combines that of Titular Organist of the Arezzo’s Cathedral (2022). He is invited to hold masterclasses and lectures for several top-class music institutions around Europe, Middle East, Russia and North America. He is also invited to serve as a juror in international competitions. He records with: VDE-Gallo, Spektral Records, Fugatto, Da Vinci Classics, Decca and Warner. In 2024, in Russia, he was awarded the “Organist of the Year” prize. This is a Russian award promoted by the “Foundation for the Development of Creative Initiatives” with the support of the Russian Music Union and the magazine “Musical Life”. It has been motivated as follows: for the creation of cultural bridges. Eugenio is the first foreigner musician that obtained this prize.
Francisco Javier López García (Spain) is the titular organist of the Cathedral of Ávila, professor of the Catholic University of Ávila and professor of musical languages of Ávila’s Conservatorio Profesional de Música. As a teacher, he also became a professor at the University of Salamanca, professor of the course “Beginning with the Spanish Baroque Organ” of Medina de Rioseco and the “Curso Nacional para Organistas Litúrgicos” of Valladolid. As a composer, he has premiered works in Germany, Hungary and Italy. He has performed as a soloist at the main American Latina organ festivals and in Europe. He has participated with different orchestral and choral groups from all over Spain, highlighting the soloists of the RTVE Choir and the National Orchestra of Spain. He is president of the Cultural Association “Organaria” for the cataloging, study and conservation of the organs of Castilla y León.
Louisa El Khoury is a renowned Lebanese opera singer and pianist. Her musical journey began at the age of eight with piano lessons, and at eighteen, she discovered her passion for opera under the guidance of Maestro Toufic Maatouk. She has honed her artistry through masterclasses with internationally acclaimed musicians, including Vincenzo Scalera, Francesco Demuro, Catherina Di Tonno, Joyce Khoury, and Raquel Paulin. From 2013 to 2016, Louisa performed as a soloist with the Lebanese Orchestra, followed by a tenure with the USJ Choir from 2016 to 2019. During these years, she showcased her exceptional vocal talent at prestigious events and ceremonies. Her international engagement includes performances with the NDU Choir in Italy, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and Oman. In recent years, she has been a featured soloist at the Beirut Chants Festival, the AUB Festival for the Zaki Nassif Program for Music, the AUB Classical Music Club,and Beit Tabaris, further cementing her presence in the classical music scene. Beyond performing, Louisa is passionate about nurturing the next generation of musicians as a dedicated educator. Through her teaching and numerous performances, she continues to inspire and empower aspiring artists to pursue their musical dreams.
Born in Beirut of Greek-Lebanese origins, Matteo El Khoder moved to Paris to take singing lessons with several teachers, including David Kaufmann, then joined the Ecole normale de Musique in Paris in the class of Agnès Mellon. He signed a contract with Universal Music France and released two albums followed by European concert tours. In 2007, he introduced baroque music and the non-existent back then countertenor voice to Lebanon and the Middle East and sang in several festivals to thenis invited to the Doha Opera House in Qatar with the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2020, he represents his country in “The Voice France” where he will dazzle the 4 chairs of the juries. Holder of several international singing prizes including the Prix du Public du Concours International de Chant Baroque de Froville, he played several title roles in world premieres including “Apollo and Hyacinth” by Mozart at the Cité de la Musique in Paris with Les Folies Françoises then triumphed in “Ormindo” by Cavalli in Morocco and Berlin with the Wiesbaden Orchestra. Matteo is also starring as an actor in movies and series and recently, a French series on Prime Video and Netflix.
Passionate about both performance and education, Elie Njeim is a professor at the Lebanese Higher Conservatory of Beirut. Experienced trumpet player with over 20 years as a member of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra. He has participated in numerous international trumpet masterclasses, collaborated with prestigious orchestras, and performed at major music festivals worldwide.