Bach famously had moments of contention with his employers and colleagues over fees, commissions, teaching schedules, leave of absence. In these respects at least, it seems that nothing much changes.

Working as a professional organist requires additional skills beyond musicianship, so the RCO has organised a one-day Organists in Business conference in June to provide business skills and career advice to organists at all levels.

In March 2014, our partners at the Incorporated Society for Musicians presented a webinar for ISM members entitled Key Issues in Safeguarding and Child Protection. The webinar, presented by ISM Head of Legal In March 2014 David Abrahams, addressed some common issues that musicians who work with under 18s should be aware of.

‘To accompany hymns well is our bread and butter’, said Daniel Moult, at the start of our RCO workshop on hymn playing last year, ‘but also quite an art.  So take pride in your hymn playing – have your own hymn book marked up with your pedalling, cues, and notes.’

Tempted by a fine redundant organ? Steve Mansfield was: by a recently overhauled Lloyd of Notttingham organ from the late 1800s in his home town in Derbyshire – and he bought it for £750. “And how much room is this going to take up?” was his wife’s first question.

Listen to the Ede & Ravenscroft Recital which closed the College’s 2016 Conferment of Diplomas ceremony, performed by John Scott Whiteley, Organist Emeritus, York Minster, playing music by J.S. Bach, Saint-Saëns, Verdin, MacMillan and Jackson.

You can watch the College’s 2016 Conferment of Diplomas ceremony in full or as edited highlights.

In February, Aine Kennedy attended ‘The Conservatoire Experience’ presented by the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Organists. This is her report from a day designed to give young organists an insight into life at a music conservatoire.

Professor Peter Williams, Bach Scholar and a Vice President of the RCO, has passed away, appropriately around midnight just before Bach’s birthday, the 21st March. Official tributes will of course be paid elsewhere, but I would like to remember a study day which I attended as a very newbie organist, in which his sharp, questioning intelligence, combined with great authority, were powerfully in evidence.

RCO members, students and their families filled Southwark Cathedral on Saturday for the 2016 Conferment of Diplomas.