Listen to the Ede & Ravenscroft Recital which closed the College’s 2019 Conferment of Diplomas ceremony performed by Steven Grahl, including music by York Bowen, Huw Watkins, Percy Whitlock, Judith Bingham and Oskar Lindberg.

Charles Tournemire’s (1870–1939) L’Orgue Mystique is a cycle of solo organ pieces composed for use in the Roman Catholic liturgy. Tournemire wanted to do for the Roman Catholic Mass what Bach had done for the Lutheran Mass with his Orgelbüchlein. The completed work is subtitled ’51 Offices of the liturgical year inspired by Gregorian chant and freely paraphrased’, and Westminster Cathedral have begun a performance of the complete cycle (13 hours of music in its entirety) in a liturgical context: Martin Baker, Peter Stevens, Jonathan Allsopp and Adrian Gunning are among the organists taking part.

Even in a big city like London, it can be difficult to find organ practice facilities. The United Grand Lodge of England have recently restored and enlarged the 1933 Henry Willis organ in the Grand Temple at Freemasons’ Hall, and also installed a new three-manual and pedal Viscount Classic digital organ one of their meeting rooms there. They are generously offering practice time on these organs free of charge to RCO Members.

The RCO’s big Summer Course really does cater for all levels of playing – everyone gets an individual tailored timetable to suit their needs and abilities, and many people come back year after year as their playing progresses. Booking has opened for the 2019 Course. Read the experiences of three students in previous years, all at very different levels of ability.

A project to engage young children with the pipe organ heritage of the Netherlands has created a global network of organisations allowing children to build and play a two-octave mechanical action organ. The original organ design by Wim Janssens is now being reproduced by professional organ builders in the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, Sweden, and now the UK, as part of the Orgelkids project world-wide.

One of the more pleasurable of New Year resolutions is to decide to expand our repertoire and learn new pieces, and there’s help here on iRCO, with no fewer than ten short videos on organ repertoire, presented by experts in their field. Each one provides inspiration on a different century, or a different musical culture, with advice on appropriate registration, style and performance.

Jonathan Davies regards achieving the ARCO qualification as his greatest personal achievement, though it was a long road from just wanting to play flashy pieces on the organ to acquiring the musicianship needed to qualify. He describes some of the techniques which led to final success, for the benefit of anyone else contemplating this examination.

The 2019 East of England Organ Day celebrates the world of film in May, with concerts of cinematic repertoire for the organ, and improvisations, featuring the majestic 1933 Grand Organ in the Chapel of the Royal Hospital School, Holbrook, in Suffolk. School organist David Pickthall will create live, spontaneous soundtracks at the piano to two short Harold Lloyd films – here he explains the techniques that both pianists and organists can use to improvise to live films.

Go with organist colleagues to an organ recital at the Royal Festival Hall, and sooner or later someone will strike up a nostalgic lament for Wednesdays at 5.55. Harry Hoyle has just published a history of this extraordinary series of weekly organ recitals on the RFH organ, which lasted for 34 years. His engaging account will interest both organists and anyone fascinated by the social history of classical music performance in the second half of the twentieth century.