The Winners

Born in Jena, Germany, Alexis Grizard discovered the organ at the age of 11 with Philippe Brandeis at the Conservatoire of Cergy-Pontoise.

From 2020, he studied at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris with renowned professors such as Olivier Latry, Michel Bouvard, Thomas Ospital and Thierry Escaich.

In 2021, he participated in the recording of Olivier Messiaen’s complete works at Toul Cathedral, and this year, he will be recording his first solo album.

At the Angers Competition, under the aegis of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, he was awarded the Grand Prix Jean-Louis Florentz in 2023, along with the Audience Prize and the Contemporary Creation Prize. Alexis won the 20th-Century Organ category at the 2024 Xavier Darasse Competition in Toulouse.

Beyond classical repertoire, Alexis is passionate about performing orchestral transcriptions, the works of Jean-Louis Florentz, and new compositions.

Grant Smith is a performing organist and church musician based in Houston, Texas. He is a recent graduate of Rice University, where he studied under Ken Cowan for a Masters degree in organ performance.

In July 2024 he was awarded Third Prize in the 24th International Leipzig Bach Competition, and he has been invited to perform in the Boston Bach Birthday Festival and the Arnstadt Summer Organ Series in 2025. Previous competition successes include First Prize and Hymn Prize in the 2023 Hall Organ Competition in San Antonio, Texas and First Prize in the 2022 Feith International Organ Competition in Blieskastel, Germany.

Grant Smith is currently organist and pianist at Christ Presbyterian Church in Houston. He is also the accompanist for the Houston Masterworks Chorus, a prominent community choir in Houston which performs major works from the classical repertoire as well as new music.

Bernhard Hauk was born in Osnabrück. He began studying the organ aged 14, and later won several first prizes with his baroque ensemble, including at Jugend musiziert and at ORDA in Amsterdam. He was also successful as a solo organist and won prizes at Jugend musiziert. In 2020 he began studying church music with David Franke in Freiburg.

He is a prize winner of several competitions, such as the International Organ Improvisation Competition Anton Bruckner and the Kirch´Klang Festival Bad Ischl, where he was awarded first prize of the Culture Capital Bad Ischl. He also won the Grazer Orgelkino in 2024 and was a prize-winner at the Competition for Organ Improvisation in Leipzig 2025.

Since 2024 he has been a Masters student of church music in the classes of Matthias Maierhofer, Frank Markowitsch and Wolfgang Seifen.

Aleksanteri Wallius is the First Prize winner of the 23rd International Wiesbaden Organ Competition. He was also a finalist in the prestigious Longwood Gardens and Elizabeth B Stephens organ competitions in the USA.

Wallius graduated from the Sibelius Academy in 2024, studying under Markku Hietaharju, Markku Mäkinen. He is now pursuing a postgraduate degree at HMT Leipzig with Martin Schmeding.

He regularly performs as a soloist and collaborates with choirs and ensembles, including as a soloist with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO). He has played at all major Finnish organ festivals and gives concerts across Europe.

His main interests lie in 19th-century French symphonic organ music and in creating and performing arrangements. In the autumn of 2020, he performed all six organ symphonies by Louis Vierne in one day at Turku Cathedral.

Andoni Andrada was born in Madrid. He studies at the École Normale de Musique de Paris with Vincent Warnier and at the Conservatoire de Versailles with Jean-Baptiste Robin. He completed his piano
studies at the Integrated Music Centre in El Escorial, Madrid.

In 2024 he graduated from the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory in Moscow, where he studied organ with Aleksei Parshin and piano with Aleksandr Vershinin and Andrey Pisarev and participated in masterclasses given by prestigious organists. He has been invited to perform solo organ recitals at the Kirov City Philharmonic, Moscow Catholic Cathedral, and the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, and he has given numerous organ concerts in churches and cathedrals throughout France and Spain.

Andoni Andrada performs on organ and piano, and as an accompanist in vocal
recitals.

Ádám Tabajdi gained extensive international
experience as the organist scholar of the Notre Dame de Paris and as the resident
organist of the Sapporo Concert Hall Kitara in Japan.

In 2023 he won the Third Prize of the Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition and in 2021 the First Prize and the Audience Prize of the 13th Toulouse International Organ Competition.

Besides the largest cathedrals and concert halls in Hungary, he has performed at the Royal Chapel of Versailles, NotreDame de Paris, at the Kallio Church of Helsinki, the Tallinn Dom, St John the Divine Church in New York City and in major concert halls around Japan.

He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest and at the Paris Conservatory; he is currently a doctoral student at the Liszt Academy.

In 2019 Axel de Marnhac (Improvisation Finalist) started studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris with Olivier Latry, Michel Bouvard and Thomas Ospital. He is now studying with Vincent Warnier and Sophie-Veronique Cauchefer-Choplin.

He previously studied at the Clermont-Ferrand conservatory. Since the age of ten, he has been organist in the church of Pontaumur, playing a copy of Bach’s organ in Arnstadt.

He was also a substitute for the Grand Organ of the Cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand between 2016 and 2019. In 2024 he was nominated as Organist Competition Holder of the Orgue de Choir de Saint-Sulpice.

As a composer, he created two baroque suites and two symphonies for organ between 2012 and 2016.

Carlo Massimo (Improvisation Finalist) began playing piano and organ at the age of only two. After being self taught for six years, he joined St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh, where he stayed for nine years learning organ with Duncan Ferguson, master of music at St Mary’s Cathedral. At the same time, Carlo became a chorister in St Mary’s Cathedral Choir, singing concerts both solo and with the choir around Europe.

In 2023 Carlo moved to Paris and began studying organ with Eric Lebrun and David Cassan at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de St Maur, and also with Jean-Paul Imbert at the Schola Cantorum, where he recently received his Diplome de Virtuosité with the highest possible mark.

While in Paris, Carlo has played for services and concerts in churches such as Saint-Pierre de Montmartre, Saint-Jaques du Haut Pas, La Trinité and Sainte-Clotilde.