By O’Connor Daniel | Reporter
When Olivier Latry watched flames tearing through the roof of Notre-Dame Cathedral in 2019, he couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing.
“How is it possible?” Latry said. “There are things in life we think are eternal and then they just disappear within a few hours.”
Latry, the cathedral’s primary organist and one of the world’s most renowned living musicians, watched as centuries of history burned.
“I thought the organ would be destroyed,” he said. “But compared to the cathedral itself, that was nothing. Seeing it burn like that was just a hollow pain.”
Five years later, and the majestic, gothic structure and its 600-year-old organ meticulously is now restored, and Latry will perform Tuesday at Jones Concert Hall with the same expression of faith and musical precision that carried him through the cathedral’s rebirth.
Latry’s visit to Waco is part of Baylor School of Music’s Showcase Series, where he will perform works by Guilmant and Bach before closing with a live improvisation on a surprise theme. The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in Jones Concert Hall, followed by a master class with Baylor students the next day. Admission to the concert is free and open to the public.
Baylor associate professor of organ Dr. Jens Korndörfer, who once studied under Latry in Paris, said the visit is a “rare and remarkable opportunity for students to learn directly from one of the greatest living interpreters of the organ repertoire.”
Born in Boulogne, a small town in northern France, Latry’s older brother taught him his first piano chord. The rest he taught himself. At age 12, his first time playing the organ didn’t go quite as planned.
“It was for a wedding mass,” he said, laughing. “I didn’t understand how all the stops worked, and I accidentally stepped down on one of them. It made an incredible noise in the church — one of the bridesmaids actually collapsed from the shock. That was my first experience with the organ.”
Despite the incident, Latry fell in love with the instrument.
“Most of the organs in France are in churches,” he said. “So for me, it became natural — I played for mass each week, and it became part of my life.”
Even considering his talent and work ethic over the years, Latry said the heights he has reached in his career still surprises him.
“I thought becoming organist at Notre-Dame was something not reachable for me,” he said. “I never imagined it would happen.”
When his mentor, Pierre Cochereau, died in 1984, the city of Paris held a competition to select a new group of organists who could serve in various churches across the city. Notre-Dame, he said, was never even part of his plan.
“I thought one of the organists in Paris would move to Notre-Dame and then I could apply for their smaller church,” he said. “But I was finally chosen to pass the competition, especially for Notre-Dame — which was a great surprise.”
Because he assumed he had no chance, Latry said he entered the competition without worry.
“I was totally relaxed because I was sure it couldn’t work,” he said. “And because I was so relaxed, it worked.”
Notre-Dame’s first mention of organ music dates back to 1357. Though those medieval pieces aren’t used in today’s liturgy, Latry said they still use them through the cathedral in concept.
“We have several concerts in relation to the musical story of Notre-Dame — not only the musical story, but the historical story also,” he said. “We play them to pay homage to this music.”
Latry is one of only a handful of musicians to serve as a primary organist at Notre-Dame — a lineage stretching back centuries, with roughly fifty organists in total over time. Latry said he feels a strong connection to the Notre-Dame organists that came before him.
“I remember the first time I played as the official organist,” he said. “I had the impression that all my predecessors from the 16th or 17th century were behind my back, listening to what I was doing. It was horrible.”
Weeks after the 2019 fire, Latry was allowed inside the ruins to find the organ miraculously untouched — its internal temperature had never risen above 17 degrees Celsius, or roughly 63 degrees Fahrenheit.
“It was a miracle,” he said.
But when he finally played again, the experience was bittersweet.
“It was like someone having a big accident and trying to relearn how to walk,” he said. “You have to relearn the cathedral.”
Though the organ survived the 2019 fire, the cathedral’s acoustics did not. During restoration, crews cleaned centuries of soot and replaced damaged materials, leaving brighter walls that now reflect sound differently. The seven-second echo remains, but its tone and clarity have changed. Latry said the cleaner surfaces make the sound brighter and more immediate, forcing organists to adjust their touch.
Latry said he was the last person to play the Notre-Dame organ before the 2019 fire — during Palm Sunday mass, two days before the fire. Five years later, Latry was among the first to play the organ again.
When the cathedral reopened in December 2024, he took part in a traditional ceremony led by the Archbishop of Paris. Instead of performing from a written score, Latry improvised — a long-standing Notre-Dame tradition. The service opened as a dialogue between the archbishop and the organ: after the archbishop proclaimed, “This organ sings the glory of God,” Latry answered with music — a spontaneous expression of resurgence.
The moment, he said, though beautiful, was poignant for Latry.
“I wouldn’t say I was very happy,” Latry said. “So many things had happened in five years. Some of the organists were no longer with us, and it was strange. At the same time, I was happy and I was sad for those who could not return and for everything we had gone through.”
“We just felt the atmosphere of the moment,” he said. “The archbishop would speak a phrase like, ‘This organ sings the glory of God,’ and we would improvise on it.”
Even with world leaders in attendance, he said he did not feel nervous playing during the reopening ceremony.
“Playing in church is not like playing a small concert,” he said. “When you play for the church, you’re there to serve the master of the cathedral. I just play for God.”
For Latry, sacred music has a transcendent effect on the player and listener.
“Playing is a way of establishing a link between our world and another dimension,” he said. “The musician speaks to God in the name of the people and speaks to the people in the name of God.”
Latry said his improvisations are never the same twice.
“It should not sound improvised,” he said. “It should sound structured — like a written piece. It will be something unique, and it will never happen again.”
When asked how the world’s leading organist pursues excellence, Latry paused.
“Music is not a competition with other players,” he said. “It’s a competition with ourselves: to be better than what we are.”
