Dear List,

Jarle Fagerheim and Felix Hell will not be the only young foreign-born organists at OHS in Buffalo.  Alexey Vylegzhanin, a brilliant 16 year old organist and composer from Novosibirsk, Russia, will also be there.  For those of you who may not know, Novosibirsk is a city of 2 million people and the capital of Siberia.  It is a city that was built almost entirely during Soviet times, and it has a very distinguished conservatory.  Alexey has been in the conservatory system there since he was six years old, and has played the organ since he was nine.  When I met Alexey right after he had turned 15, he was playing pieces such as the <Scherzo> of Durufle, and the <Ein Feste Burg> Fantasy of Reger!  He has won many prizes in Russia for his compositions, and is a very talented graphic artist.  Alexey traveled to Paris with my organ class and me in January of 2003.  Alexey will turn 17 in August and will compete for the second straight year in an international organ competition in Sl!
 ovenia.
 He will enter my class at Western CT State University in the fall of 2005, if all goes according to plan.

Jarle Fagerheim and Alexey Vylegzhanin will both be attending the AGO Pipe Organ Encounter in Worcester, MA, after the OHS convention. I will be there as well, as the official representative for the AGO's "Committee On the New Organist"  (CONO) and will teach both Alexey and Jarle at the POE.  They are both fine young organists and composers, and they are very excited about their visits to the USA.  Jarle will be traveling with his mother, Bodil, who is also an organist, but Alexey will be coming here alone.  Alexey will be staying with me and taking lessons while he is here.  He's here to improve his English before taking the infamous TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language) which he must pass in order to be admitted to the university and get a student visa.  I'm an old hand at this process now, since I already have two students from South America.

Stephen Roberts
Western CT State University, Danbury, CT

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Note:  opinions  expressed on PIPORG-L are those of the  individual con-
tributors and not necessarily  those of the list owners  nor of the Uni-
versity at Albany.  For a brief  summary of list  commands, send mail to
[log in to unmask]  saying  GET LSVCMMDS.TXT  or see  the  web
page at http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/lsvcmmds.html .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::