Tom Bell continues his video diary around the preparation of the organ works of Olivier Messiaen for performance, now looking at Messiaen’s organ music more widely.

The College’s bi-annual magazine for members contains features, details of forthcoming events and courses, and general news and views from the RCO.

Drew Cantrill-Fenwick traces the processes whereby an organ was build for La Madeleine, Paris, by an increasingly influential Aristide Cavaille-Coll.  His archival research allows us to see, stage by stage, the construction history of this much-lauded instrument.  The project was a multi-disciplinary affaire in which the influence of the artisan was replaced by that of the scholar, the administrator, and the politician.

The recent centenary of Stefans Grové’s birth has been a catalyst for Herman Jordaan to investigate Grové’s monumental Afrika Hymnus, where the compositional materials, timbres and resonances, often removed from organ conventions, are stimulating and rewarding for the player and listener alike.  The author puts the music in the context of the environment and cultures of his native South Africa, and has prepared recorded music examples to accompany the article.

Magnus Williamson recounts the archival and archeological detective work that has taken place at Lincoln Cathedral, in conjunction with the Byrd quatercentenary.  By bringing the building in line with post-Restoration practice in 1702, the Dean and Chapter also ended a spatial arrangement which had once generated the rich pre-Reformation tradtions of organs and voices in ‘alternatim’.  The characteristics of the building, and their musical implications, are probed in detail.

International Organ Day is now in its fifth year, and each year more and more countries have joined in this celebration of organs, organists, and organ music. We report on the huge variety of events, and instruments, that were part of International Organ Day 2024.

Watch the College’s 2024 Conferment of Diplomas Ceremony here, in full, or as edited highlights, and download the programme, along with the full texts of the speeches and citations.

In the third of our Working Webinars created in partnership with the Musicians’ Union, Tansy Castledine, Director of Music at Peterborough Cathedral, discusses leadership skills for organists and choral directors.

A gallery of pictures from the College’s annual Conferment Ceremony at Southwark Cathedral on Saturday 9 March, at which RCO President David Hill presented successful examination candidates with their awards and diplomas, and also presented four RCO Medals.