James Mitchell plays his Festival Toccata, the winning entry in the under-25 years category in the RCO’s Composition Competition, held in 2020.

A full listing, with links, of the Learning during Lockdown series, which ran as a series of 16 bulletins throughout 2020.

Magnus Williamson, Professor of Early Music at Newcastle University, presents a film on Tudor organs and organ music, featuring the Wetheringsett organ built in 2002 by Goezte & Gwynn.

Not every organ possesses a Zimbelstern, but this ‘toy stop’ has been a popular addition to organs for hundreds of years. John Kitchen, Edinburgh City Organist, suggests how and when you might use it, demonstrating on the organ of Old St Paul’s Episcopal Church, Edinburgh.

Katherine Dienes-Williams, a Trustee of the RCO and also Organist and Master of the Choristers at Guildford Cathedral, hears from RCO Members about how playing the organ has changed their lives, and what membership of the RCO has meant to them.

Organist Kevin Bowyer gave the first UK performance of Xenakis’ organ piece Gmeeorh. He discusses aspects of performing this remarkable piece, with excerpts played at the organ of St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York City.

The art of accompanying a choir, and conducting (or ‘waving’) at the same time, is explored by Simon Williams, a Director of the RCO, and also Director of Music of Harrow Choral Society.

Conductor Nicholas Cleobury looks at the differences between conducting a capella, and working with orchestras.  In two films he discusses conducting skills, and how to prepare a score for performance, using Haydn’s Little Organ Mass as an example.

Director of Oundle for Organists, Ann Elise Smoot, explains how the Organ Voluntary developed as a new form of organ music, in the context of the new liturgy of the Protestant Reformation in sixteenth-century England.