CHRISTMAS ORGAN CONCERT & FAVOURITE CAROLS BY XAVER VARNUS

"Xaver Varnus has been called the Horowitz of the organ (New York Times), or contra-riwise the Paganini of the organ. And even the Glenn Gould of the organ. But he is none of the above. Instead, he is plainly the Xaver Varnus of the organ, a self-assured prodigy with a mind of his own."
THE TORONTO STAR

“This was no ordinary organ recital. It was a rare miracle — a sacred ceremony in which a man, divinely endowed, revealed to us his secrets, enchanted us, uplifted and renewed us. We stood as witnesses to the workings of a vast and wondrous power — a power to be revered, never possessed. In the Matthias Church, Xaver Varnus performed Bach with such dignity, such effortless naturalness, and such magnetic grace that one could scarcely imagine it otherwise. Through his playing, we felt the pulse of eternal spiritual and intellectual forces, unconfined by time or space. Within this music there reigned an order akin to that of the cosmos, the notes succeeding one another as planets trace their ordained paths. He held the power to summon that ineffable, sacred instant when every heart in the audience faltered by a single beat.”

BUDAPEST ESTI HÍRLAP

"Put simply, Varnus is a monster talent, every bit as stimulating and individual as the late Glenn Gould. That's not a name to be invoked lightly, but Varnus, like Gould, has more than virtuosity and interpretive strength, he has the rare talent of being able to make us hear his instrument in a new way, as though he were re-inventing it on the spot."

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

“In short, he doesn’t need Gould or Horowitz. He’s Varnus, a splendid performer. His technical command just doesn’t come up for discussion. He can do anything he wants to do. He makes it sound easy, just like a Harlem Globetrotter casually finding a basketball the entire length of the court and sinking it dead centre. Every time.”
THE HALIFAX CHRONICLE HERALD

Born in 1964, Xaver Varnus was the first child of a mathematician mother and a jazz pianist father. By the age of six, Varnus knew exactly what he would become. His first piano teacher was Emma Németh, one of the last pupils of Claude Debussy. He lit up the musical firmament of the world like a shooting star. He has played virtually every important organ in the world, including those in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., Notre Dame, Saint­-Sulpice and Saint­-Eustache in Paris, Berliner Dom, Canterbury Cathedral, as well as the largest existing instrument in the world, the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ in Philadelphia. However, fate reserved the most moving invitation for Varnus until 2014, when, near to his fiftieth birthday, Ullrich Böhme, organist at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, suggested he play the famous Sauer Organ over the grave of the mighty Johann Sebastian Bach. There was a slight altercation in the crowd gathered in front of the church when the doors opened an hour before the start. A younger woman indignantly told an elder American gentleman not to push as she had stood in line over an hour to get in. “Madam,” he replied, “I have been stood in line for 30 years to hear Xaver play in the Thomaskirche.”

Organist, impro­viser, author, lecturer and media personality, Varnus has had a dramatic impact on audiences’ acceptance and appreciation of organ music. Over the course of his career, Varnus has played live to more than seven million people worldwide, recor­ded fifty-­three albums, made sixty concert films, and written five books. In 2006, he played the inaugural concert of the grand organ of the Palace of Arts in Budapest, and in 2009, he gave two sold-out concerts with the iconic French jazz pianist Jacques Loussier at the Palace of Arts. In 2011, he gave two joint concerts with the legendary Rhoda Scott, which sold 30,000 tickets in a single weekend. Mr. Varnus’ videos have sur­passed 45 million views on YouTube. His Bach concert film, recorded at his recital in the Berliner Dom in 2013, has become the most ­watched organ concert movie in music history, with 20 million views. His “Quadruple Platinum Disc Award” winning album “From Ravel to Vangelis”, released by SONY in 2007, is the best­selling collection of organ recordings ever.

“Varnus is a monster talent, every bit as stimulating and individual as the late Glenn Gould.” These lines are by the distinguished North American critic Robert Everett­-Green, which appeared in Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe & Mail on 8 May 1986. A few years later, the Toronto Star music critic Ronald Hambleton wrote: “Varnus has been called the Horowitz of the organ (The New York Times), or contrariwise the Paganini of the organ (Le Figaro). And even the Glenn Gould of the organ. But he is none of the above. Instead, he is plainly the Varnus of the organ, a self­-assured prodigy with a mind of his own”. As a Canadian citizen, Varnus spends much of his time at his official residence Villa Varnus, his family’s beautiful historical country estate at Lake Balaton, as well as at his 12th-century house in Todi (Italy) and his home in Berlin (Germany).

During the summer months Xaver Varnus resides in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, where he is the artistic director of his international music festival hosted in his private concert venue, Varnus Hall, within a 19th-century Victorian church building. In 2023, Xaver Varnus also bought another abandoned 19th-century church in the Transdanubia region, which he named Adam Varnus Memorial Hall in memory of his brother, who died young. Xaver Varnus has received many honours, including the Most Excellent Order of the Republic of Hungary, the Officer’s and the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit.