Dates & Price
June 18–22, 2019
Ballroom
Per Preliminary Round:
Reserved Seating: $30
Gardens Preferred and Gardens Premium Members: $25*
Final Round—Sold Out
Reserved Seating: $60
Gardens Preferred and Gardens Premium Members: $51*
Final Round tickets include both the 12:00 pm & 6:00 pm performance rounds
Ticket includes all-day Gardens Admission.
Congratulations to our Winners!
Pierre S. du Pont First Prize
Sebastian Heindl
Firmin Swinnen Second Prize
Bryan Anderson
Clarence Snyder Third Prize
Colin MacKnight
Audience Choice Prize
Sebastian Heindl
AGO Philadelphia Chapter Prize
Sebastian Heindl
Left to right: Sebastian Heindl, Bryan Anderson, and Colin MacKnight
Organists from around the globe compete in the Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition for the $40,000 Pierre S. du Pont First Prize, the largest cash prize of any organ competition in the world. Experience the preliminary and final rounds as 10 of the organ world's brightest young talents compete on the Longwood Organ–one of the world’s largest Aeolian pipe organs–before a panel of esteemed judges.
Learn more about our 2019 International Organ Competition competitors.
Congratulations to our Finalists
Saturday, June 22—Sold Out
Final Round at 12:00 pm
Thomas Gaynor
Colin MacKnight
Final Round at 6:00 pm
Bryan Anderson
Sebastian Heindl
View the Recording of Our Competition!
Find out more about the Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition.
Final Round to Feature To Longwood Gardens by Samuel Barber
Created as a companion piece to the full-length documentary Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty and directed by H. Paul Moon, To Longwood Gardens explores the origins of famed American composer Samuel Barber’s first composition for organ. Barber’s To Longwood Gardens is an integral part of the 2019 Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition. The competition judges have chosen this work as a required piece for each competitor to play in the final round of the competition, and the AGO Philadelphia Chapter Prize will be awarded to the competitor who interprets and plays this piece with the most beauty. Barber wrote the piece in 1925 at 15 years of age, dedicating it to Longwood founder Pierre S. du Pont and describing it as a “melody of peace” intended to express one’s emotions while exploring Longwood. In this bonus clip, P.S du Pont Fellow Colvin Randall reads excerpts from Barber’s letter to du Pont and Peter Richard Conte performs the piece on The Longwood Organ.
