Dan Zerfaß (born 1968) is a German classical organist, the cantor at the
Worms Cathedral
St Peter's Cathedral (German: ''Wormser Dom'') is a Roman Catholic church and former cathedral in Worms, southern Germany.
The cathedral is located on the highest point of the inner city of Worms and is the most important building of the Roma ...
and academic teacher.
Career
Born in
Simmern
Simmern (; officially Simmern/Hunsrück) is a town of roughly 7,600 inhabitants (2013) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, the district seat of the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis, and the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Simmern-Rheinböllen. In the Rhinelan ...
, Zerfaß was a student of Regional cantor Franz Leinhäuser in
Oberwesel
Oberwesel () is a town on the Middle Rhine in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Hunsrück-Mittelrhein, whose seat is in Emmelshausen.
Geography
Location
Oberwesel lies ...
. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Frankfurt, finishing in 1992 with top honors as a church musician and graduating in 1993 as a recital organist. Influential teachers were
Edgar Krapp
Edgar Krapp (born June 3, 1947 in Bamberg) is a German organist and music professor. Krapp is a member of the Board of the Neue Bachgesellschaft (New Bach Society) in Leipzig and the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts.
Biography
Krapp's first organ le ...
(organ),
Wolfgang Schäfer
Wolfgang Schäfer (born 7 April 1945) is a German choral conductor and academic. He founded the Freiburger Vokalensemble, the BosArt Trio, and the Frankfurter Kammerchor.
Career
Born in Staufen im Breisgau, Schäfer studied music education, vo ...
(choral and orchestral conducting) and Godehard Joppich (Gregorian chant). He took master classes with Daniel Roth,
Wolfgang Rübsam
Wolfgang Friedrich Rübsam (born October 16, 1946, in Gießen) is a German-American organist, pianist, composer and pedagogue.
Biography
After his musical training with Erich Ackermann in Fulda, Germany, Rübsam studied at the Musikhochschule ...
and
Guy Bovet
Guy Bovet (born 22 May 1942 in Thun) is a Swiss organist and composer.
Career
Bovet studied under Marie Dufour in Lausanne, Pierre Segond in Geneva and Marie-Claire Alain in Paris. From 1979 to 1999 he taught Spanish organ music at the Univer ...
(organ), Egidius Doll,
Peter Planyavsky
Peter Planyavsky (born 9 May 1947) is an Austrian organist and composer. He attended the Schottengymnasium. After graduating from the Vienna Academy of Music in 1966 he spent a year in an organ workshop, and has been instrumental in organ-buildin ...
and
Theo Brandmüller
Theo Brandmüller (* 2 February 1948 in Mainz; † 26 November 2012 in Saarbrücken) was a German composer of Contemporary Music, organist and university teacher.
In 1989, Zerfaß became cantor at St. Albert in Frankfurt and in 1996 the regional cantor at St. Bonifatius in Bad Nauheim. Since 1999, he has been the cantor at the cathedral St. Peter in Worms. From 1993 to 1997 he taught liturgical organ playing at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe and is supervising an organ literature class at the
Hochschule für Musik Mainz
The Hochschule für Musik Mainz (HfMM, Mainz School of Music) is a university of music, part of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. It is the only such institution in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
History
The institution was ...
of
Johannes Gutenberg University
The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (german: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) is a public university, public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany, named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. With approx ...
in
Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...
. He is also as an organ expert of the Diocese of Mainz and works in the artistic direction of the Internationale Orgelfestwochen (International organ weeks) of the festival Kultursommer Rheinland-Pfalz (Cultural Summer of Rhineland-Palatinate).
As a composer, he participated in the project ''Mainzer Bistumsmesse'' (Mass of the Diocese of Mainz), a collaboration of six regional cantors to create a
mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
in German for choir, a high voice (children's choir or soprano) and organ. He composed ''Herr, erbarme dich'', Nicolo Sokoli ''Ehre sei Gott'', Thomas Gabriel ''Ich glaube an Gott'',
Andreas Boltz
Andreas Boltz (born 13 July 1964) is a German church musician and composer. From autumn 1993 until 2011, he was the Regional Cantor of the diocese of Mainz in Darmstadt. He was awarded the Premio Speciale in 1992 at the International Composers ...
''Gottheit tief verborgen'', Ralf Stiewe ''Heilig'', Ruben J. Sturm ''Lamm Gottes''.
He recorded the complete organ works by
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
and works by
Petr Eben
Petr Eben (22 January 1929 – 24 October 2007) was a Czech composer of modern and contemporary classical music, and an organist and choirmaster.
His life
Born in Žamberk in northeastern Bohemia, Eben spent most of his childhood and early ad ...