The RCO’s toes are still tapping after spending a day with the Troxy Wurlitzer in January, in the company of our colleagues of the Cinema Organ Society. Young Theatre Organist of the Year 2016, Lewis Scott, was also there, and he talks about winning the competition, how he manages to practise, and his plans for the future.

The San Francisco-based musician, Michael Hendron, travels the world, seeking out harmoniums and reed organs in dusty corners of French cathedrals and village churches, recording interesting repertoire. He has made videos at Sainte-Clotilde and La Madeleine in Paris, on harmoniums dating from the time of Franck, Fauré and Saint-Saëns. Michael joined David Aprahamian Liddle last November at St Barnabas, Pimlico, where David is the proud owner of a 2-manual harmonium built in 1868 by Philip J Trayser of Stuttgart.

The 2016 edition of the College’s annual research publication, The Journal of the Royal College of Organists, can be downloaded here as a complete edition.

This video, the fourth in Daniel Moult’s series on playing styles, addresses the German Romantic music of Mendelssohn and Brahms.

With the formal winding up of the Percy Whitlock Trust in 2017 due to the lapsing of copyright, Robert Gower gives a summary of the aims and achievements of the Trust during its existence, and discusses Whitlock’s musical legacy.

For the Centenary Celebrations of the College one event in particular stands out, a concert organised by Peter Hurford at the Royal Albert Hall on 24 September 1966 entitled ‘Organ, In Sanity and Madness’.  At the viewing distance of a half-century, it is timely to note its context, its impact, and subsequent repercussions.

Christopher Kent examines the life and times of William Sterndale Bennett: his contribution as organist, composer and conductor to nineteenth century musical life, and his contribution to the growing nineteenth-century appreciation of J S Bach.

Sidney Campbell was appointed Organist of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, in 1961, and went to considerable lengths to ensure the Harrison & Harrison organ there met his exacting criteria.  Relf Clark studied with Campbell at St George’s, and gives an outline of Campbell’s career and achievements.

Keyboard players of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were expected to be proficient accompanists on all types of keyboard instrument, from organ to harpsichord and, later, fortepiano. Thomas Allery looks at original source material to gain insight into the performance practices of early music.