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We have had a most eventful summer season this year, and, as I write in the sultry August sunshine, it’s good to reflect on how much exciting organ music has been going on in and around London. As well as the innovative series at Westminster Abbey (Mixtures) and the continuing high-profile regular concerts at the Royal Festival Hall, there’s been the ever-imaginative St Albans International Organ Festival, the London Organ Summer Course, the St Giles Organ Project Marathon (see report), the London Improvisation Summer School and the continuing Celebrity Recital Series at St Paul’s Cathedral. As the autumn approaches there’s still much to enjoy. The exciting new venture of the London Organ Forum, established to bring organ literature into focus alongside music for other instruments, hosts a study day on the keyboard music of César Franck on 25 October at the Royal Academy of Music (sponsored by the RAM, supported by the Royal College of Organists, information from www.londonorganforum.com / 020 7834 7917). The regular recital series at churches and cathedrals throughout the metropolis have, as usual, riches to offer and there are events this season worth a special mention. A new Young Artists’ series, the first in London for young organists since the Royal Festival Hall ran something similar in 1979, starts in November on Tuesday lunchtimes at St Lawrence Jewry (and it’s hoped this will become an annual showcase and feature also new compositions for the organ) - artists Mark Williams, Robert Quinney, Matthew Martin and Henry Fairs perform this year (see panel). A major new teaching instrument is unveiled in January 2004, when the eagerly
anticipated new organ at Trinity College, London (now rehoused in its elegant
new surroundings at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich) is opened. Voiced
for the modest-sized seventeenth-century room which is the College’s main
Recital Room, the 12-stop organ has been designed and built by William Drake,
appropriately after a model by Samuel Green owned by HM the Queen and recently
restored by Drake. It has been given by Roger Gabb, in memory of his father,
former Trinity College Organ Professor Harry Gabb OBE, distinguished teacher and
Cathedral Organist (see advert for information and booking details). The organ’s
siting as a prime feature of the College’s principal Concert Hall is an
important symbol of the equal status of the organ alongside other instruments
and ensembles, rather than isolation as sole inhabitant of a peculiar ghetto.
With the London Organ Forum underlining the same theme, there’s lots to think
about and enjoy in this season’s organ events. |
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Any comments or corrections: webmaster@londonorgan.co.uk Click here for information about advertising in the London Organ Concerts Guide Last updated: 05 May, 2008 |
