Jean-Baptiste GAUPILLAT

Jean-Baptiste Gaupillat was born in 1970 and began studying the organ at the age of twelve with Régis Foucard.  In addition to discovering baroque music he soon developed an interested in technical and mechanical aspects of the organ.  In 1985 he became an organ student at Troyes Conservatoire, obtaining his final diploma five years later.

He showed an ever-increasing interest in organ-building and after completing his secondary education in 1987 became apprenticed to Laurent Plet, the only organ builder in the Champagne region.  During this three-year period he attended courses organised by the French training college for future organ builders, the Centre National de Formation d’Apprentis Facteurs d’Orgue d’Eschau, in Alsace.

Jean-Baptiste Gaupillat obtained his professional qualification (the Certificat d’aptitude professionnel) there in 1990 and remained with Laurent Plet’s firm until 2000.  During the course of the thirteen years spent working there he had the opportunity of studying voicing with Philippe Hartmann who was working on the historic organ of Nogent-sur-Seine.  The scrupulously exemplary restoration work carried out by Laurent Plet on historic instruments has provided Jean-Baptiste Gaupillat with training experience of undeniable quality.

In autumn 1999 he founded his own firm for making organs at Noviant-aux-Près, settling permanently in Lorraine.  He is therefore not far from the workshops of Laurent Plet, with whom he collaborates quite regularly. 

Jean-Baptiste Gaupillat is also a keen amateur organist.  He was organist of the Hartmann organ in the abbey-church of Montier-en-Der (52) from 1983 to 1999 and also deputised at Troyes Cathedral and Saint-Martin-ès-Vignes.  While attending frequent courses and summer schools for organists, Jean-Baptiste Gaupillat received tuition and advice from internationally-known organists of the calibre of Jean-Charles Ablitzer, Marie-Claire Alain, Michel Bignens, Michel Chapuis, Jean-Luc Etienne, Gilles Harlé, Bernard and Mireille Lagacé, Pierre Laustriat, Jean-Pierre Leguay and Norbert Pétry.