Marie-Claire Alain would have been one hundred years old on 10 August 2026. Included on the list of fifty personalities or events selected by the Institut de France for the 2026 National Commemorations, the great organist will be honoured in a variety of ways.
Erato-Warner will be releasing a centenary box set in her honour, featuring previously unreleased CD recordings and a comprehensive anthology of her repertoire. The set will also include the reissue in April of L’Encyclopédie de l’Orgue, for which she made more than half of the recordings.
Ligia will reissue the complete vocal works of Jehan Alain, which were recorded by Sequenza.93 and Marie-Claire Alain in 2005 for Sisyphe/Abeille Musique.
Concerts will pay tribute to her in the places she loved and faithfully frequented throughout her career, as part of academies and festivals. These include Saint-Donat-sur-l’Herbasse (since 1962), Romainmôtier, home to Albert Alain’s rebuilt organ (since 1990), as well as Valloires, the Alain family’s chosen home since 1922; and finally Masevaux, where she was the last to play the Callinet organ before the fatal fire of 1966, and whose reconstruction she advised the Kern firm to undertake.
Lectures, often held alongside these concerts, will explore her unique life and career. Testimonies from her former students will accompany these events and will undoubtedly give rise to publications. The December 2026 issue of our magazine will pay tribute to her.
It will also be associated with the English publication of the book on Jehan Alain, written by his daughter Aurélie Decourt-Alain (The Leupold Foundation), and the new edition of Jehan Alain’s organ music by Jean-Baptiste Robin, featuring contributions from Aurélie Decourt-Alain. This will be published by Leduc.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of the planned tributes to date:
> 15 March 2026: A trumpet and organ concert devoted to the transcriptions made by Marie-Claire Alain for her famous duets with Maurice André, held at the Saint-Pierre-de-Neuilly church. Philippe Sauvage on the organ and Matthieu Magnin on the trumpet.
> 23 April 2026: organ recital by Vincent Warnier on the Guillemin organ at the church in Mérignac, inaugurated by Marie-Claire Alain on 18 December 1994.
> 21 May 2026: Saint-Germain-en-Laye. As part of the Université Libre, there will be a lecture by Aurélie Decourt-Alain in the Salle Jacques Tati.
> On 5 June 2026, there will be an organ recital by Thierry Escaich at the collegiate church of Saint-Donat-sur-l’Herbasse. Thierry Escaich has taken over from Marie-Claire Alain as professor at the Académie Internationale J.S. Bach de Saint-Donat and now gives an annual improvisation masterclass.
> 27–28 June 2026: a tribute weekend in Romainmôtier, Switzerland, with former students in attendance. The weekend will feature the premiere of Jehan Alain’s transcriptions of François Campion’s Œuvres pour luth, published by the Schola Cantorum in 2026 in a new edition by Guy Bovet and Robert Fielding.
> 4–5 July 2026: a tribute weekend at Valloires Abbey (Argoules, Somme) with two concert-lectures by David Titterington (UK), Jean-Baptiste Robin, and Aurélie Decourt-Alain. There will also be an exhibition on Marie-Claire’s career and the Alain family.
> On 9 August 2026, at the Saint-Martin church in Masevaux, there will be a concert/lecture entitled ‘Litanies’ by Vincent Warnier and Aurélie Decourt-Alain, as part of the 50^(th) Masevaux International Organ Festival. The exhibition will also be on show.
Photo credit : family archive of the family Alain (1974)
