The London Organ Concerts Guide's 11th birthday year is hereby launched in a brand new booklet format, superseding the old folded sheet. We think this more convenient for you, our readers. Comments and suggestions for further improvements are always welcome, via our website or land address (see home page).

One of our aims is to bring a wider audience to enjoy and appreciate music played at the organ. Yet for many serious musicians and music-lovers, there seem to be various barriers to accepting organ concerts as staple fare. For example, the pianist Charles Rosen asserts in his recent book (Piano Notes, 2002) that "the organ is irrevocably tainted with religiosity". The current LOCG offers many opportunities to undermine such a view.

Try the recitals at concert halls and town halls, for instance. Music in these settings is as secular at the organ as, say, at the piano. At the leviathan which is the Royal Albert Hall organ (25 October), at the medium-sized gem at Reading Town Hall (2 November, 29 March), and even at the small neo-classical instrument at the Queen Elizabeth Hall (27 November), top organists will be showing just how wrong Rosen's premise is.

On the other hand, many of the recitals in the venues we list feature major religious works, including those by Bach (whose Organ Toccatas seem exempt from Rosen's slur), and it's not religiosity, but meditative, almost mesmeric fervour, that is their product. The fusion of liturgical organ repertoire in a sacred setting can create an inspirational Gesamtkunstwerk, or, fusion of all arts involved (music, architecture, history, paintings), resulting in an experience greater than the sum of all the parts. Messiaen's works are a supreme example of this. There's plenty about at Christmas; in fact two competing performances of La Nativité du Seigneur at both St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey (see panels) show the popularity of a regular "fix" of Messiaen.

Welcome to one new venture which should inspire creativity of all kinds to the organ world: the first Annual New Organ Music Festival, 7-20 October (www.afnom) at various venues in London. More information about these exciting events is included towards the back of this issue.

For those who want to study further, there's a wealth of educational opportunities this winter. New courses are being run, inter alia, by the Royal College of Organists (www.rco.org.uk), London Organ Forum (Mozart and Mechanisms, 28 October, www.londonorganforum.com), Oundle (www.oundlefestival.org.uk) and St Giles International Organ School (www.organschool.com).

There's much to hear and learn in the next six months, and to enjoy, without a sniff of religiosity.

Catherine Ennis

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Last updated: 05 May, 2008