Olivier Eisenmann was born in 1940 in Zürich. He studied with his father, the composer Will Eisenmann, and at the Conservatory of Lucerne with Sava Savoff (piano) and Eduard Kaufmann, professor of the Swiss Academy of Sacred Music and organist of the Collegiate Church Lucerne (organ). At the same time he gained a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Zürich.

Since 1957 he has performed as a pianist, and since 1972 as a concert organist. He has given recitals in almost all European countries e.g. in Madrid, Haarlem (St. Bavo), Paris (Notre-Dame), Lyon, Rouen, Brussels, in the cathedrals of Barcelona, Bruges, Aachen, Cologne, Treves, Berlin, Dresden, Danzig, Warsaw, Vienna (St. Stephen`s), Graz, Klagenfurt, Lausanne, Geneva, Cahors, Bourges, Dijon, Rotterdam, Dublin, Edinburgh, Chester, Sheffield, Lincoln, London (St. Paul`s), York Minster, Copenhagen, Oslo, Turku, Helsinki and regularly in Swedisch Cathedrals (among others several times in Stockholm, Göteborg, Karlstad, Linköping, Kalmar and Uppsala); in the minsters of Bonn and Berne, in Hamburg, Munich, Salzburg, Prague, Bratislava, Cracow, Budapest and Ljubljana. He has played at a number of major organ festivals including those in Ragusa, Naples, Rome, Verona, Turin, Gent, Bonn, Rostock, Helsingör, Kosice (Slovakia), Oliva (Poland), Moscow, Ufa, Nishni Novgorod, Yalta, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, in the Mexican cathedrals of Morelia and Guadalajara and in the International Festival of Music Lucerne. Concert tours have also taken him to Mexico City, the USA (e.g. in New York, Boston, Washington D.C. and Seattle), Australia (Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney), Russia (e.g. St. Petersburg, Kazan, Chelyabinsk), in the Baltic Republics (e.g. in the cathedral of Riga) and in the Ukraine. He has been a soloist in orchestral concerts with the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie, the Deutsches Bachorchester, the State Philharmony Kosice, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in Singapore.

The programme for each recital he gives is individually tailored to the specification of the organ on which he ist playing, in order to demonstrate its resources.

He recorded for radio and television in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, in the Czech Republic, in Hungary, Slovenia, Poland, Russia, Sweden and Brazil.

His vast repertoire is also reflected in 19 recordings (12 discs, 7 CDs ), ranging from première recordings of important works of Otto Barblan, Ermend Bonnal, Hans Studer, Josef Garovi, Will Eisenmann, Linus David and Hansruedi Willisegger) to the music of the 19th and 20th century, particularly late romanticism in Germany (Mendelssohn, Rheinberger, Reubke, Liszt, Reger), France (Boëllmann, Franck, Dubois, Saint-Saëns) and Scandinavia ( Sandvold, Lindberg, Olsson). He devotes also on Swiss organ music (Forchhammer, Honegger, Frank Martin, music of our time) as well on the music for flute and organ (together with Verena Steffen).

Apart from organ playing he is a managing board member of the "Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik" - Section for Central Switzerland. He has written articles for magazines and has given lectures on organ music, e.g. in Academies of Herford, Sydney, Moscow and Nishni Novgorod.


Verena Steffen has an equally distinguished career as a flautist. She graduated from the Conservatory of Lucerne, where she studied under Jean Soldan. Verena Steffen pursued further study with André Jaunet, Heinrich Keller and Takashi Saito.

She lives in Weggis and devotes her time to her career as a soloist with orchestra as well as to recital and chamber music appearances in Germany, Austria, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Danmark, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia as well as in Australia, Mexiko and the United States.

She participates in numerous festivals, including the Festival in Lezajsk (Poland) and Igualada (Spain). She is specialisted in music for flute and organ, playing worldwide together with Olivier Eisenmann. She has a flute class at the teachers` training college in Lucerne, the twin town of Bournemouth. Her recordings have been released with Magnon-, Aurophon- and Violet labels.

vsteffen@bluewin.ch