Orgues Nouvelles is planning an English language edition
In the UK we are fortunate to have three periodicals that between them offer a wide range of content on organs, organ music and organists. The oldest of these is The Organ, founded in 1921 and published quarterly. It was an offshoot of the magazine Musical Opinion, which is a valuable research resource as it was first published in 1877. The Organ was my entry point into the world of organs as my first organ teacher had a stack of back issues which I read through voraciously.
The origins of Organist’s Review date back to a meeting in November 1913 at which the National Union of Organists’ Association was established. and the first Congress was held in 1920 in Stockport. It translated into the Incorporated Association of Organists in 1931. The Quarterly Record first appeared in 1915. Organists’ Review is now published quarterly and is in the process of a redesign under editor David Pipe. There is an archive of back issues.
Choir and Organ is also published quarterly and dates back to 1993, with all the issues being available in a digital archive.
In the USA the American Guild of Organists publish The American Organist monthly. There is also Diapason (founded in 1909) and then there is The Tracker, published quarterly since 1956 by the Organ Historical Society.
To this collection of English language magazines there is hopefully going to be a new member. Orgues Nouvelles was launched in 2008 and is published quarterly in both print and (since 2022) digital formats. Each issue comes with a CD. See here for an example.
The quality of writing, breadth of topics and production design of the issues are all superb. The magazine may have a French editorial team but this is very much not a magazine just for French organists.
The magazine is now planning an English edition, which is going to be a substantial investment in meeting the costs of translation. It also means tweaking the page layout as English and French have slightly different average sentence lengths.
Issue No.0 is up on the Orgues Nouvelles web site as a pdf. In the words of Pascale Rouet, Editorial Director
“We are therefore delighted to offer you this inaugural issue, which will introduce you to the spirit of the magazine. It's important to note that this is not, strictly speaking, the transposition of a publication, but rather a compilation: a main feature on Hendrik Ahrend, reproduced in its entirety, will be followed by the beginnings of several of our columns, in order to give you the widest possible range of topics.”
At the present time no decision has been taken on proceeding with the English version.. There is a questionnaire on the site to enable the team to assess the level of interest.
I would encourage all of you to complete the survey as an English version would have a global readership, complementing the magazines listed above which are primarily written for organists in the USA and the UK.