2025 Weiwuying Organ Festival: Contemporary Great Wayne MARSHALL Shoots for the Moon

For this year’s Weiwuying Organ Festival, with Asia’s largest pipe organ and its magnificent timbre under the spotlight, British organist Wayne MARSHALL is calling the shots. From 1 – 4 Oct, three moon-themed performances that incorporate a choir, an orchestra, and solos will be held at the Weiwuying Concert Hall and the Pingtung Performing Arts Center.    

Organist Wayne Marshall (Photo credit: Charlie Best)

On 1 Oct, the concert Luminous Hymns, co-organised by Weiwuying and the Pingtung County Government, will go on at the Pingtung Performing Arts Center. MARSHALL will perform two pieces of sacred music from the UK and France with the Kaohsiung choir Planetesimal Chorale Ars Spacium, a special treat being his solo reinterpretation of DEBUSSY’s Clair de lune. At the concert Virtuoso Portraits, in the Weiwuying Concert Hall on 3 Oct, he and conductor CHIEN Wen-pin will be joined by the Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra and push the organ to its limits in concerto format with such pieces as DUPRÉ’s Symphony in g minor and Joseph JONGEN’s Symphonie Concertante for organ and orchestra. This gargantuan dialogue between the organ and orchestra will radiate with the splendor of two symphonies in a duel. On 4 Oct, MARSHALL will put on a solo recital, Song to the Moon, to show audiences the amazing potential of Asia’s largest organ through his transcendent mastery in playing pieces spanning from the glorious era of BACH to the diversity of the contemporary day, serving us a condensed history of the organ’s countless graces.  

Conductor CHIEN Wen-pin (right)

Aside from spectacular performances, MARSHALL will document his time in Taiwan by recording an album (to be released next year) in the Concert Hall. 

For more information on the Weiwuying Organ Festival, visit the official website:  https://www.npac-weiwuying.org/?lang=en 

Weiwuying concert hall (Photo credit: LIN Chun-yung)