Titular organist of the great organ
Sophie-Véronique CAUCHEFER-CHOPLIN grew up in a family of musicians who taught her the piano from an early age. After musical studies (piano, organ and harmony) at the National School of Music in Le Mans crowned by a prize of the Ministry of Culture in 1980, she entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris in the class of Rolande Falcinelli where she obtained a First Prize for organ and a First Prize for improvisation as well as the prizes for harmony, fugue and counterpoint (classes of Jean Lemaire, Michel Merlet and Jean-Claude Henry).
Emeritus organist of the Grand-Orgue of Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle in Paris (1983 – 2013), she has been organist of the Grand-Orgue of Saint Sulpice in Paris since 1985 and she was appointed titular organist in February 2023. She is the first woman to accede as such on the 3 largest Parisian stands. In 1990, she perfected her skills with Loïc Mallié and received the second prize for improvisation (she is the only female winner…) of the Chartres International Organ Competition.
Sophie-Véronique CAUCHEFER-CHOPLIN is pursuing a brilliant concert career (as a soloist, with instrument and with orchestra) all over the world: she has traveled to more than thirty countries. Considered by her peers as one of the best improvisers of her generation, she also performs in “organ and speaker” concerts, notably with Pierre Arditi, Pauline Choplin, Pierre-Marie Escourrou, Didier Flamand, Brigitte Fossey, François-Eric Gendron, Michael Lonsdale, Marcel Maréchal and Guillaume Marquet. In 2019, she also performed with foreign actors in Germany and Finland. Currently, she has created, with two actors and a director, a musical show on the poems of Alicia Gallienne (“Half of the dream belongs to me”)
His sensitivity to improvisation leads her to give Master-Classes both in France and abroad such as for the AGO National Convention of 2006 and 2012 as well as to animate academies (London, Biarritz, Kevlar, Stockholm, Schwäbisch Gmünd, USA, etc.). She is also regularly called upon by the juries of national and international competitions (AGO Chicago 2006, Chartres International Competition 2008, Karl Nielsen Odense Competition 2011, AGO Nashville 2012, Longwood Gardens 2013, Miami 2014, Quebec 2014, Dublin 2014, Chartres 2016, Odense 2017, Saint Albans 2017, Schwäbisch Gmünd 2019 and 2022, etc.).
She was appointed Professor of Organ in Performance and Improvisation at the Royal College of Music in London in 2008. She was also a visiting professor at Yale University – New Haven USA.
She performed in September 2017 as part of the concert cycle at the Saint-Sulpice church where she improvised, for the first time in this place, on a silent film (“La passion de Jeanne d’Arc” by C.Th. Dreyer). Since then, she regularly renews this experience in France and abroad: in particular, she was invited to the Fête du Cinéma (Paris – 2019 and 2020). She will soon perform in this context at the Iserlohn festival (Germany) and in Pori (Finland).
She has just composed and improvised the music for a short film based on the poem “L’Adieu Perdu” by Alicia Gallienne (https://vimeo.com/793229070).