The Liverpool Blue Coat School has a national treasure in its assembly hall – a 1874-built Father Willis organ. Thanks to support from the National Lottery, the school is developing a project to restore it, to be a focus for music within the school, and also to support a new Blue Coat Organ Scholarship. This scholarship will not only involve the restored Father Willis, but will extend to the use of both the Liverpool Cathedral and Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral organs.

Ten years ago Will Fraser spotted a market for recordings of keyboard instruments, using the global reach of the internet to find their niche market. “I wanted to produce films that you can’t find on television, knowing there was an audience which would react when word of them arrived on the web. And out of that, Fugue State Films was born.” He talks about the challenges of fundraising and filming Fugue State’s acclaimed organ series, especially the recently released box set on Max Reger, their biggest project so far.

Two new competitions for university and conservatoire organ students (including recent graduates) have been launched this year, and the deadlines for entries for both are rapidly approaching, in February. Read on for details of the CAOS inaugural student organist competition to be held in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and the IAO – RCO competition, with finals in Peterborough Cathedral this summer.

The Essex Organists’ Association invites organists from beginners to advanced, and whether RCO Members or not, to take part in their annual organ competition this Spring. The winner of the Advanced class will be given the opportunity to perform a pre-Sunday Evensong recital in Chelmsford Cathedral.

Peter Woodward came to organ playing late in life. It was unexpected, but the involvement with the instrument and its music has been transforming. Here’s the story in his own words – how on the death of his wife Mary he took up the piano and then the organ, and followed her in attending the RCO’s big Summer Course for the last three years.

Leicester MusicFest 2018 welcomes amateur organists of all ages and abilities to showcase their talents in two competition classes in their annual pipe organ competition which takes place on the afternoon of Saturday 10th February 2018, on the Peter Collins organ in the St Cecilia Auditorium at English Martyrs Catholic School in Leicester.

Westminster Cathedral’s Grand Organ Festival 2017 ended on Wednesday 29 November with a recital by the Cathedral’s Master of Music, Martin Baker. In his role as RCO President, Martin arranged for this also to be an occasion for members of the College’s Anniversary Circle and other supporters to enjoy a pre-concert talk and post-concert reception in the atmospheric surroundings of the Clergy House Library.

Those of us who attended the RCO/Cinema Organ Society Organ Day at the Troxy Cinema in London’s East End last January are aware of the skills of organists like Richard Hills FRCO – equally at home on the classical as well as the cinema organ. Now, a year on, another celebrated classical organist will step up to the Troxy Wurlitzer – Thomas Trotter gives his first concert on the cinema organ this coming January, in the company of Simon Gledhill. We look at the legacy of other crossover artists in the organ world.

How did Olivier Messiaen combine the creative life with the conventions and strictures of his role as organist? And how can that help us understand and perform his music? In this year’s RCO Organ Forum at the Royal Academy of Music, Artistic Director Robert Sholl brought together academic and performance experts to answer these questions, in a celebration of Messiaen’s work held in this, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the composers’ death.