Monthly Archives: February 2026

Christopher Rathbone will perform a recital at St. Margaret’s Ilkley on Friday 6 March at 12.30pm, featuring Widor 7 (three movements) plus King Lear Fantasia from 1989.

Please click here to see the full programme for the series between February and October 2026.

The next concert with Cantorelli at Hebden Bridge Parish Church is on Sunday 1st March at 3.30pm when we will be joined by organist Professor David Baker on a chest organ, for a programme of timeless sacred choral and organ masterpieces spanning five centuries from Renaissance composer Thomas Tallis to late Romantic Josef Rheinberger.

Cantorelli, with some new faces, is joined in this concert by Professor David Baker who will accompany us and also perform solo music on a chest organ. David is an accredited tutor with the RCO Academy, the premier body for tuition for the pipe organ. His book The Organ: a guide to its construction, history, usage and music is a standard text on the subject. He is founder and director of Halifax Organ Association. He is also choirmaster and organist at St.Michael’s Church, Mytholmroyd.

Highlights include music by Tallis, whose spare and perfectly balanced writing remains a cornerstone of English choral tradition; a masterful contrapuntal motet by J.S.Bach, Lobet den Herrn; a richly textured and deeply human  motet, Geistliches Lied (Sacred song) by Brahms; a warm and lyrical Stabat Materby Josef Rheinberger; awe-inspiring harmonic motets by Bruckner and William Croft’s Funeral Sentences (recently used at the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II); together with organ music by Bach, Tallis’s contemporary John Cosyn, and Croft’s near contemporaries, Henry Purcell and John Stanley.

Admission £10.00 on the door (free admission for under 18’s)

There are three classes at the organ day in May, they are:

253 Organ (Junior)
Grade 0-3
Fee ₤5.50
Up to 3 mins

254 Organ (Intermediate)
Grade 4-7
Fee ₤6.00
Up to 4 mins

255 Organ (Senior)
Grade 8+
Fee ₤8.00
Up to 8 mins

Concerto Competition For Concerto entries, please see our Concerto Competition section

More information is available here. The closing date is 25 February 2026.