The Stavanger Konserthus in Norway aims to create innovative programming around its 2012 Ryde & Berg organ, and on 17th November 2018 will present Messiaen Complete – all the organ works of Olivier Messiaen in one day, over 9 hours with 8 international organists. The project combines the formal recital with a more free audience experience, and includes video projection and lighting design by one of the country’s leading video designers.

Organists here in the UK have their worries, but coping with the effect of a 6.3 earthquake on their livelihoods isn’t one of them. The earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2010 and 2011 damaged and destroyed many churches and pipe organs. But some, due to both circumstances and craftsmanship, survived, and in 2018 they are beginning to be heard again.

Sara Rothwell studied the organ from the age of 16, but only recently decided to take an RCO Diploma examination – winning both the Freemasons’ Prize and a John Birch scholarship in the process. She describes the challenges of taking the exam, and how she prepared for it.

John Varley Roberts remains one of the less well-remembered church organists of the Victorian and Edwardian periods. And yet his influence, especially as a choir trainer, was both considerable and enduring at a time when organ and choral music in the Anglican Church was undergoing a significant transformation. This study – part of a bigger piece of work on Roberts – considers his attitude to the organ.

The year 1976 brought the 25th Anniversary of the opening of the Royal Festival Hall, and to celebrate this the BBC commissioned a 20-minute work from Peter Racine Fricker for a concert of English music. Fricker chose to write a short single movement symphony, and as an FRCO, he decided to include an organ part. Gillian Weir was invited to be the soloist, and in this article from the RCO Journal of 2017 she describes the event, and also discusses the performance of a later concerto by Fricker, Laudi Concertati, which was dedicated to her.

The restoration of the organ at Canterbury Cathedral has begun, with some radical changes to the position of the pipework and console. Harrison & Harrison are working on the creation of new pipework in their Durham workshops, while Viscount Organs discuss the challenges of providing a digital replacement to maintain the musical life of the Cathedral for the next two years.

If you’re finding the requirements to improvise at the organ a bit daunting, or want to take your own skills to the next level, then read about two courses coming up in July which are focussed solely on improvisation for organists of all standards – one with tutor Ansgar Wallenhorst, left. There are also now two improvisation teaching videos to watch here on iRCO, which include exercises and a reading list to download.

In this film Matthew Martin discusses how to approach the improvisation tests in the ARCO examination syllabus. He suggests devices, patterns and techniques for the different tests, and demonstrates them on the Kenneth Tickell organ of Keble College, Oxford.

Thierry Escaich’s compositional work is recognised the world over, and in acknowledgement of this he was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France in 2013. He is the only composer of international stature today whose output contains a substantial place for the organ.

David Maw analyses Escaich’s writing for the organ in detail, with examples, in this article which originally appeared in the RCO Journal for 2017. Maw discusses Escaich’s creation of genres of writing of his own invention, along with the traditional concerto form; his use of improvisation and historical allusion; and his assimilation of an unusually wide range of musical material – from folksongs to note-rows, from triads to seemingly atonal chords – without any compromise to the compositional voice.