Andrew Cantrill-Fenwick and Ronny Krippner present a video on improvising a hymn partita – using the blueprint of a hymn tune to create a set of variations based on the creative manipulation of harmony, rhythm and registration.

As Covid-19 shuts down concert halls, schools and churches, RCO colleagues suggest ways in which the spare time created in musicians’ lives can be used constructively, with suggestions for practice timetables, repertoire, and building new skills for the future.

Watch the College’s 2020 Conferment of Diplomas ceremony here, in full, or as edited highlights, and download the Programme, and the full texts of the speeches and citations.

Listen to the Ede & Ravenscroft Recital which closed the College’s 2020 Conferment of Diplomas ceremony, performed by Anne Page, which included works by Bach, Daniel Roth, Judith Weir and Olivier Messiaen.

Over sixty years ago, the Musicians’ Company, one of the historic livery companies of the City of London, inaugurated a scholarship in memory of the great Victorian concert organist, W T Best. This year the award has been renamed The Musicians’ Company Award for Organists, and candidates between the ages of 18 and 26 are invited to apply: the deadline for this is the end of February 2020.

Like any cultural or technological artefact, the organ represents its time and the people who built it. A new feature length documentary by Fugue State Films traces the history and development of the organ and its music from c1550 to the present.

Jean Guillou was a composer, improviser and performer frustrated by the lack of vision for the future of the organ as an instrument. His thoughts on how the organ could develop outside of the church and religion led to a remarkable 25-minute piece La revolte des orgues, which was given its UK premiere this month in Westminster Cathedral, as part of a nine-organ extravaganza, presented by the Cathedral in association with the RCO and Viscount Classical Organs.

Because pipe organs are so long-lived, the need to commission a new one, or renovate an old one, doesn’t arise very often.  However when work is needed, an adviser is required with answers to all the ensuing musical, technical, acoustical, architectural and historical questions. The Association of Independent Organ Advisers (AIOA) exists to provide and accredit these experienced specialists. Organist Tom Bell talks about his own organ consultancy work towards becoming an accredited AIOA member.

Performers from six European countries will come together in Westminster Cathedral on 20th November, to perform the UK premiere of Jean Guillou’s spectacular La Révolte des Orgues, a 25-minute piece for percussion, and no fewer than nine organs.  Some of the musicians have played La Révolte before, but not all, and rehearsal time is limited, starting on 17th November, when Viscount Organs will install seven digital instruments, to add to the Cathedral’s Apse and Grand pipe organs.