Argentinean-born Hector Olivera started playing the pipe organ at age 3. At 12, he was the youngest student at the University of Buenos Aires, before becoming a scholarship student at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. Mr. Olivera’s career embraces countless performances as soloist with symphony orchestras around the world, at renowned concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, as well as virtuoso concert performances in places such as the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California.

Mr. Olivera continues to be a featured artist at international pipe organ festivals, and national and regional conventions for both the American Guild of Organists and the Royal Canadian College of Organists. His exceptional ability to improvise was demonstrated in the United States when he won the American Guild of Organists’ improvisation contest in 1968, and since, has been honed to a keenness that leaves his audiences in awe. Olivera was the artist of choice to perform at Spivey Hall in Atlanta for the 1996 Olympic Games cultural event, for which he received standing ovations and rave reviews.

Hector Olivera’s preferred touring instruments are built by Roland and Rodgers, but he does play personal engagements on instruments already in place in major concert halls and prestigious cathedrals.

Hector Olivera can be contacted through the management of Thomas White, at 3844 11th Street S.W., Suite 525 • Canton, Ohio 44710-1491 (330) 479-1587 • FAX (330) 479-1572 

César Franck was born in Liége, Belgium in 1822. He lived most of his life in Paris and came to be regarded as a French composer. For many years up to the time of his death, he was organist at the church of Sainte-Clotilde, and his organ music is among his finest work.

Living at a time when French Music was at its lightest and least serious, earning an international reputation for its flippancy - and this applied to organ music as much as to stage works - Franck brought a note of lofty purpose to it. Franck’s organ music consists in the main of twelve pieces a set of six and a set of three, composed before the instrumental masterpieces of his maturity, and a final set of three, the Trois Chorals which are his last compositions. César Franck always referred to the organ at Sainte-Clotilde as his "orchestra". It was this organ, built by Aristide Cavaillé-coll, that provided the instrumental inspiration for his twelve organ pieces. They are all conceived and registered in terms of its romantic organ colors, even though the Trois Pièces of 1878 were composed specially for the opening of another Cavaillé-Coll organ, that installed in the Paris Trocadero for the great Exhibition of that year. According to Marie Louise Langlais, there are reasons to believe that the Trois Pièces were composed thinking of Augusta Holmes, who was a student of Franck as well as a famous composer in those days.

It is recorded that Franck played all the Six Pièces for his friend and admirer, Liszt, at Sainte-Clotilde on 13 April 1866. Liszt afterwards declared "These poetic pieces have a clearly marked place alongside the masterpieces of Johann Sebastian Bach". High praise, but more than a century of organ recitals has shown that together with their companions the Trois Pièces and the Trois Chorals have occupied, in the estimation of players and audiences, precisely the place accorded them by Liszt. In this recording, Hector Olivera includes the Fantasia in A Major, the Cantabile and the Piéce Héroïque from the set of Trois Pièces, and the Pastorale and the Grande Piéce Symphonique from the Six Pièces. 

The Organ of the Cathedral of St. Mary The Cathedral of St. Mary is the center of worship and cultural arts for the Miami Roman Catholic Archdiocese, Miami, Florida. A recent two year renovation has resulted in a most visually attractive and acoustically spectacular venue for the Mass and sacred masterworks. The original Cathedral organ was built by Möller in 1962. Rodgers Instrument Corporation was chosen to provide a new four manual console to control the 48 pipe ranks with an additional 68 digital stops totaling 127 ranks. The console features eight divisions controlling the gallery, chancel and chapel organs and trompeteria.