Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2025 i Choir & Organ

Welcome to Spring’s Choir & Organ where we bring many new developments and columns to the magazine. It always strikes me what a broad canvas the choral and organ worlds span. One area that is often overlooked is the amateur choral scene in the UK. Much has been said about the impact of choir singing on mental wellbeing and community, but amateur groups can also be of high quality and take tremendous artistic risks. Clare Stevens is beginning a new series looking at some of these groups across the UK and the work they are doing. Elsewhere, RCO has launched its ‘Play the Organ Year’ initiative. This hopes to encourage people of all ages to explore the organ, but I hope it also raises awareness for the lesser-known repertoire and…

BUZARD PIPE ORGAN BUILDERS ANNOUNCES construction of a new facility to house its organ building operation. It is located in Rantoul, Illinois, 10 miles north of Buzard’s existing Champaign shops. The new 45,000 square foot building will house workshops for its production, service, and tonal departments, attached warehouse space, administrative offices, design studios, a conference room, and a dedicated area for employees to relax. The new facility is scheduled for completion during the summer of 2025, with move-in in the autumn. Buzard Pipe Organ Builders will also have space to administer its Apprenticeship Program and to mentor interns and students from the University of Illinois School of Music. Buzard Pipe Organ Builders has occupied its downtown Champaign location for 35 years. Forty-four new pipe organs have been built in the…

We have a real opportunity in this ‘Play the Organ Year’ to encourage new audiences and players of this fantastic instrument. Perhaps the first challenge each of us might face is how to pull together a ‘First Encounter’ performance with repertoire that really captures the imagination, showcases the instrument, and draws an audience into the endless possibilities of organ music. If you are ever delivering an organ demonstration then here are some top tips, which I have unashamedly stolen from my predecessors at Lichfield Cathedral. Martyn Rawles and I sparked curiosity with a simple question: ‘Do you know how an organ makes its sound?’ and went on to illustrate this, courtesy of a few small organ pipes to blow. After giving our audience a moment to ponder, we asked them…

What has grasping nettles got to do with playing the organ or being part of a choir? This is a good question and one which I hope will be effectively answered by this column in forthcoming editions of Choir & Organ. The makeup and preoccupations of our world are changing at an alarming rate and, unsurprisingly, many of us are left with pressing questions and strong points of view which we find difficult, or are even afraid, to express. Unfortunately, outlets for these questions and viewpoints are limited, particularly if they go against persuasive trends in the press and social media. Those who play the organ – or those who simply have a great love for the instrument – together with members of choirs and their directors, are certainly not…

Interviewed by the Washington Post about her music in 1964, Margaret Bonds said that she wanted ‘to project my own people to blot out the negative image. I want to show that the Negro is not a rapist, or ugly or stupid.’ Growing up in a United States still divided by segregation, Bonds had to contend with these negative images all her life. But she had been raised to imagine another way – a future for Black Americans that was rooted in racial harmony and collective uplift. Thanks to her mother, Estella Bonds, she had been surrounded by the country’s foremost Black musicians and cultural figures since childhood. Such luminaries as the composer Florence Price and singer Roland Hayes were regular visitors to the Bonds home, encouraging Margaret in her…

London Choral Sinfonia recorded an album of composer Simon Beattie’s music at St John the Evangelist in Islington at the beginning of February King’s College Cambridge has recently recorded an album of John Rutter’s Christmas music to be released in the autumn, coinciding with Sir John Rutter’s 80th birthday Signum has recently finished recording the complete Alkan organ works with Joseph Nolan, recorded at Eglise Saint-Martin de Dudelange, Luxemborg The King’s Singers are recording a new EP on 9 and 10 June called Headspace, with a focus on wellness and mindfulness…

Anna Lapwood, Director of Music at Pembroke College Cambridge, has announced that she is to leave her post at the Cambridge college at the end of the academic year. When appointed in 2016 at the age of 21, Lapwood became the youngest person to hold the position of director of music at an Oxford or Cambridge university college, and now leaves to pursue her solo organ career. Since her appointment at Pembroke, Lapwood has developed a significant online following with over one million TikTok followers, becoming known by many as the ‘TikTok organist’ and opening up the world of the organ to a younger audience. Lapwood is also now an associate artist at the Royal Albert Hall and has sold out her live concert at the hall on 15 May.…

BARBARA OWEN 1933-2024 Barbara Jane Owen, 91, the doyenne of American organ historians, died peacefully on 14 October 2024 following a brief decline caused by a broken hip. She had an illustrious career spanning nearly seven decades as a church organist, organ builder, historian, consultant, author and music editor. In 1994, she received the American Musical Instrument Society’s prestigious Curt Sachs Award. Born on 25 January 1933 in Utica, New York, to Welsh immigrants, David and Vera Owen, she was the oldest of three daughters. In her early school years, the family moved to New Haven, Connecticut, and attended Plymouth Congregational Church. Singing in the youth choir, she was influenced by the church’s joint music directors, William and Priscilla Mague. Both were graduates of Westminster Choir College, as was their…

Clearing out some old paperwork recently, I came across a collection of newsletters and conference brochures published in the 1990s and early 2000s by the British Federation of Young Choirs (BFYC), later YoungChoirs.net. They record the extraordinary efforts made by this organisation, established in 1983, to try to halt and then reverse the perceived decline in choral singing amongst young people in schools, churches and elsewhere. BFYC Singing Days introducing young people to great works of the European choral heritage, directed by the likes of Sir David Willcocks, Sir David Lumsden, Christopher Robinson and Brian Kay, attracted 20,000 participants aged between 12 and 25 in the organisation’s first ten years; it ran training courses for conductors and teachers, put experienced choral animateurs into clusters of schools, breathed life into fading…

Though many of the composers belonging to the golden age of Portuguese polyphony might be less celebrated than their Spanish contemporaries, the names of Manuel Cardoso, Duarte Lobo, Filipe de Magalhães and others have lived on, despite many manuscripts of the time being destroyed by the cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami of 1755 that destroyed Lisbon and much of the Algarve. Few native composers from the classical and romantic periods are well known outside of Portugal, and indeed as we reach the 20th and 21st century, the period that this article will concentrate on, the wide repertoire of choral music has not travelled extensively. As several of the composers have pointed out to me, although there are a good many choirs in Portugal, there is a relatively small market for their…

Amajor contributing factor in establishing the pre-eminence of British vocal groups during the opening decades of the early music revival was music in schools, both state and private: expected as standard, taken for granted, providing accomplished singers for amateur choirs and building a firm foundation for singers on the path to train for the professional sector – who among us Brits over a certain age did not grow up singing? Spain, on the other hand, in spite of boasting one of the world’s most opulent and impressive repertoires of medieval and renaissance polyphony, has been playing catch-up, partly because of a lack of guaranteed music provision in schools. Julio López Agudo, tenor and founder of Seville’s A5 Vocal Ensemble, does not mince his words: ‘Spain is a wasteland with respect…

KEYBOARD CDS Organ Concertos: Oquin; Parker; Rouse Paul Jacobs, Nashville Symphony, Giancarlo Guerrero (cond) Naxos 8559936 Paul Jacobs and the Nashville Symphony present stirring performances of three remarkable American organ concertos, from Horatio Parker’s concerto of 1902 to Christopher Rouse’s of 2014. Parker owes much to his teacher, Rheinberger, and yet there is a clear emerging American voice. Over a hundred years later the concerto genre is transformed into a tour de force of inventive orchestration. Both Oquin and Rouse weave an innovative web of tightly-integrated textures between organ and instruments of the orchestra. For these pieces, the organ is brought closer into the mix and I must congratulate the engineer for capturing both orchestra and organ in exquisite detail. Jacobs concludes with Variations on 'America' by Parker’s pupil, Charles…

Choir & Organ is the leading independent magazine for all professionals and amateurs in the choral and organ worlds Choirs & conductors • Organ profiles • Composers & repertoire Subscribe from only £26 per year  magsubscriptions.com/music-choir-organ +44 (0)1722 716997  subscriptions@markallengroup.com Price stated is based on an Annual Direct Debit subscription to our ‘Print’ or ‘Digital’ packages. If choosing a print annual option, an additional charge will be added for shipping overseas.…

Where did your choral journey begin? I remember going to King’s College Cambridge to hear one of the Christmas services when I was eight, and seeing the youngest choristers walk past made me realise that they weren’t much older than me. I asked my parents if I could audition and they took me to meet David Hill at Winchester, and I really owe my entire music career to the fact that he accepted me on the spot. I started as a cathedral chorister that September, in 1991. What were the highlights and lowlights of your experience? There really weren’t any lowlights – it was immensely hard work, being away from home and boarding was tough at first, but being part of a professional choir at that age and the amazing…

Women of the World (WOW) is holding an International Women’s Day event at the Royal Albert Hall on 8 March. Including new commissions from Errollyn Wallen and a new organ work by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, performed by Anna Lapwood, the evening will be lead by WOW Founder Jude Kelly CBE. Applications are now open for the 2025 St Albans International Organ Competition. The competition and festival will take place 7-19 July and is open to international performers under the age of 33. The deadline for submissions is 31 March. The International Organ Course organised by Switzerland’s Les Concerts de Romainmôtier will take place from 13 to 31 July. Three courses are available: the one-week course open to all levels 14-19 July, a performance course for organ students, professional organists and experienced…

An extensive article [C&O Autumn 2024, pp 26-29], written by Chris Bragg, concerns the new Fratelli Ruffatti organ at Pershore Abbey. It highlights the complicated organ history of that church, and the core of the article appears to be an informed technical and tonal analysis of the new instrument. We would like to give readers the opportunity to evaluate the point of view of the builder. It must be noted that the location of the organ was chosen by the Church of England’s Church Buildings Council and that the organ builder had originally suggested a different solution. Likewise, the location of the console was selected by the client (but can be changed at will, since it is placed on a movable platform). Space constrictions were an important factor here, as…

This special Collectors’ Edition of Gramophone includes ◼ 100 pages of expert and authoritative articles to explore ◼ Recommended recordings of all of Mozart’s most significant works ◼ Interviews with today’s leading interpreters ◼ In-depth and expert insight into some of Mozart’s major masterpieces Order your copy for just £14.99 today Go to www.magsubscriptions.com/mozart Call: 0800 137201 (UK) or +44 (0)1722 716997 (Overseas) Price includes shipping within the UK. Postage will be added to international orders.…