Category Archives: News and Views

This will be a special day to celebrate the wonderful Wood Wordsworth organ on Sunday 13th October 2024, from 11am to 4pm at St James’, Church Lane, Hebden Bridge, HX7 6DS (Wheelchair Access. Free Entry)
Full details of all the workshops that will be available can be found here.

Saturday 6 July, 10:30-15:30, City of London 

Further information and booking details can be found here

The Organs:
St Botolph without Aldgate, London EC3N 1AB—with pipework dating from earlier than 1704 and restored to its 1744 state by Goetze and Gwynn in 2006, this instrument can lay claim to being England’s oldest surviving church organ. Click here for the history and specification. 

St George’s German Lutheran Church, 55 Alie Street, London E1 8EB—built by Walcker in 1886 and subsequently twice restored. This organ gives invaluable insight into the opportunities and restrictions which such instruments imposed on the performer. Click here for the specification.

Schedule:
10:30–12:30 St Botolph’s
12:30 lunch break (food not provided) and short walk to St George’s
13:15–15:15 St George’s

What to prepare:
One piece for each instrument by a composer from the time and country of each organ. Here are some examples:
St Botolph’s: John Blow, Henry Purcell, William Croft, John Reading, Maurice Greene, John James, Handel, John Stanley, Thomas Roseingrave, William Boyce, John Keeble, Henry Heron, William Walond, Thomas Arne, William Russell, Samuel Wesley
St George’s: Rheinberger, Reger, Karg-Elert  

What the class will cover

• Technique: pedalling, touch, fingering, adapting to the dimensions of the keys and pedalboard, maintaining a good posture at an awkward console
• Registration: choosing stops ‘in the style’, and blending different registers to imitate alternative styles (i.e. romantic sounds on a baroque organ)
• Performance: incorporating the acoustic of the room into your performance, dealing with performance anxiety at an instrument foreign to one’s own.

To celebrate the above festival there will be four 7.30pm recitals on Tuesdays in June , held in the crossing of the cathedral and followed by a drinks reception in the south transept. 

• 4^th June: Dr Ronny Krippner Director of Music
• 11^th June: Tim Harper Assistant Director of Music
• 18^th June: Alastair Stone Assistant Organist
• 25^th June: Katherine Dienes-Williams Director of Music, Guildford Cathedral & President of the COA

Click here to see further information and to book tickets.

This course is suitable for all ages and all stages – under 18s must be accompanied by an adult. Full details can be found here.

Here is an insight into the programme:

Daily tuition pattern (Tuesday – Friday)

09:15–11:15 Organ Studios – tuition in graded groups from the same teacher in the same venue (as far as possible) each day. 

Fundamentals of Technique (complete beginners up to ABRSM grade 3 level) with Anne Marsden Thomas

ABRSM grades 4 and 5 with William Dore

ABRSM grade 6 with Claire Hobbs

ABRSM grades 6–8/CRCO with Drew Cantrill-Fenwick

Towards ARCO with Frederick Stocken

ARCO and FRCO with Jeffrey Makinson

11:45–13:00 Skills Classes – choose from keyboard musicianship, improvisation, or church music skills, with tuition in graded groups for each. Here is the 2024 Skills programme.

14:00–16:00 Workshops – teacher-led sessions with a different topic each day – or individual lessons and practice. 

16:30-18:00 Daily service played and sung by course participants, or individual lessons and practice, or further lessons and practice.

20:00-21:00 Student concerts – your chance to perform to fellow course members, if you wish.

There are special programmes for Monday afternoon and Saturday morning.

Click here to view a series of discussions/lessons on Bach’s’ Orgelbüchlein by Dr Tom Rishton. There is one episode per prelude.

The purpose of the competition is to revive some good but under-used words that need a
good new tune to increase their popularity. What is ‘good’ is up to the composer to determine.
The winner will receive £200 and publication of their piece in Organists’ Review and its
associated social media (though they will, of course, be free to make publication arrangements of
their own after this).

Please click here to see more information about the OR/IAO hymn tune competition, deadline 1 May 2024.

A masterclass aimed at musical students considering an Oxbridge Choral or Organ award, is being held at Bradford Cathedral on 20 February 2024 at 6.30pm.

Louisa Denby from Cambridge University will be visiting the Cathedral for a recital in February and as part of her stay in Yorkshire, Louisa will be offering a masterclass and information session on the Choral and Organ Scholarship awards schemes at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. 

This promises to be a fascinating and insightful evening in which they hope to demystify this often confusing process! Louisa is the Director of Studies in Music at Downing College, Cambridge and also the Co-Ordinator of the Choral Awards Scheme across Cambridge University. She has been an Organ Scholar and Assisting Organist at a number of colleges herself, and is a fount of knowledge on all such matters!

Louisa will lead everyone through the application, audition and awards process, as well as offering some sample tests for both Choral and Organ Award applicants. She will also be extremely happy to talk to anyone considering studying music about the course at Cambridge, as well as students considering any course about University collegiate life at Cambridge and Oxford.

The event is open to all in school years 10-13 or older who have yet to apply to university. Please sign up via this link here.

Dedicated to the world of the organ, organists and organ music, The Organ Podcast will be published fortnightly to inform and entertain organists ‘of every age and stage’, as well as organ enthusiasts and those who are simply curious and want to know more about our instrument and music. Episodes will feature interviews with leading UK and international organists, visit historic or little-known organs of interest, catch-up with organ rebuilds and restorations, and encounter a diverse mix of individual organ-related activities, news, discussions and initiatives from around the world. Our presenter Mark O’Brien is both an organist and an award-winning former BBC radio and tv producer. In the first episode you can hear him exploring the restoration of Manchester Town Hall’s 1877 Cavaillé-Coll organ; joining Tom Bell as he completes a new recording of Olivier Messiaen’s Livre du Saint Sacrement from Blackburn Cathedral; and meeting Margaret Phillips at her remarkable English Organ School & Museum.

The Organ Podcast is available free of charge from Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon and all popular podcast directories. It is also available to hear to via the College’s YouTube page, or simply visit theorganpodcast.buzzsprout.com to find links to all these outlets and more.