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.

If you are reading this, then you have reached iRCO, an innovative virtual campus from the Royal College of Organists, designed to provide easy access to learning, research and general information for organists and choral directors.

The RCO received more than 900 responses to its 2015 survey, providing a unique insight into the musical life of organists and choral directors. The importance of the organ and choral music in religious worship was strongly emphasised throughout the responses.

Famously prickly, irascible, caring and encouraging, Dr Bernard Rose was a one-off, and for over five decades a living legend in the UK’s choirmaster world.

Part of the examination for the RCO Choral Directing Diploma is to rehearse a choice of choral pieces from a set list.

This Spotify playlist is a personal selection of performances of this repertoire, made by the iRCO Editor.

A dairy door in a 17th-century house in Wetheringsett, Suffolk, and a piece of decaying timber found behind old pews and lumber in the churchyard shed at Wingfield, Suffolk, have transformed our knowledge and understanding of the pre-Reformation English organ.

This article and free download includes detailed descriptions and specifications of the Wetheringsett and Wingfield Organs, along with a look at the culture of the English church before the Reformation, including the use of the organ and its music within the liturgy.

This video, written and presented by Andrew Cantrill, is an introduction to the pipe organ for those less familiar with the instrument.  Andrew demonstrates the sounds of the organ, how the instrument is constructed, and how it is played.  You can learn more by downloading the reading list.

The ability to sight-read is enormously useful, but many teachers find it difficult to include in their lessons. This download from the RCO Academy aims to help teach this subject by suggesting resources, preparation techniques, and how to overcome students’ resistance to sight reading.