Willem Tanke

* 1959 in Hengelo; organist; studied at the Rotterdams Conservatorium; linking organ improvisation, contemporary music and electronics; professor at the Rotterdams Conservatorium. He studied organ and improvisation with Jan Welmers, music theory with Joep Straesser and electronic music with Ton Bruynel from 1977 to 1985; with scholarships he then worked on Olivier Messiaen’s organ works with Jennifer Bate in London and Almut Rößler in Düsseldorf. From 1989 to 2003 he was organist of the St.-Willibrorduskerk in Berkel-Enschot, whose Loret organ of 1880 he later recorded for Cybele, and from 1998 to 2000 at the Scots International Reformed Church in Rotterdam. He taught organ from 1988 to 2000 at the Hochschule der Künste Utrecht, and since 2001 theory and improvisation at the Rotterdam conservatoire Codarts, where from 2006 to 2008 he carried out the research project “The Art of Doing Nothing”, from which the twelve Lenten meditations also emerged. In 1999 his complete recording of the organ works of Olivier Messiaen appeared on eight CDs. In 1998 he received the silver medal of honour of the Nederlandse Sint-Gregoriusvereniging, in 2015 the Schnittger Dream Prize. Three albums connect him with Cybele, all made between 2005 and 2007 and all on historic Dutch and French organs. Imaginary Day (2005) moves across four instruments – the Chataîgne organ in Vouziers, the Bätz organ in Utrecht, the König organ in Nijmegen and the Loret organ in Berkel-Enschot – and adds small percussion instruments in five fantasias. In 2006 there followed Max Reger’s Variations and Fugue in F sharp minor op. 73, paired with two Wind-Fantasien of his own, on the Adema organ of St Bavo’s Cathedral in Haarlem and two Marcussen organs of the Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk in Rotterdam; in 2007 his twelve Meditations for a Lent on the Loret organ of 1880 in Berkel-Enschot.