The RCO’s first-ever Winter Conference this February was devised as the pandemic lockdown continued to prove a barrier to organists and organ enthusiasts getting together in person.  RCO Director Simon Williams decided to build on the experience through 2020 of putting all the major RCO courses online, with a new format – a complete virtual conference, with seminars, presentations, recitals, a keynote speech and a trade show. Over 200 people attended the three day event, including StopPress Editor, Morwenna Campbell-Smith, who writes this report.

An annual celebration of women composers has been launched by the Royal College of Organists and the Society of Women Organists. Sunday 7 March 2021 – the nearest Sunday to International Women’s Day on 8 March – will be celebrated as Woman Composer Sunday. Here on StopPress we have inspiration and wide-ranging resources for organists looking for repertoire by women composers.

Details about online access to The American Organist journal, for RCO Members who are Affiliate Members of the AGO.

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.

The January 2021 edition of the College’s bi-annual magazine can be downloaded by Members here in pdf format.

In 2019 the European Cities of Historical Organs (ECHO), an association of nine cities with historic organs in nine EU countries, adjudicated on a competition for a project to introduce children to the organ.  The winners were a pair of British musicians, the Scott Brothers Duo.  Jonathan Scott tells us about their winning project, and how they have been able to continue to work through the Covid-19 lockdown across Europe.

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.