The Royal College of Organists mourns the passing of its patron Her Majesty The Queen, and remembers in particular her presence at the College’s 150th Anniversary celebrations.

Bach’s Orgelbüchlein (or Little Organ Book) was left incomplete on his death. Now contemporary composers have been comissioned to fill in the 118 missing pieces, and the completed Orgelbüchlein Project will have its UK premiere this September.

Jeremiah Stephenson shares ideas on how to practise improvisation and develop the keyboard harmony reflexes to improvise on hymn tunes. 

RCO Accredited Teacher, Anne Marsden Thomas, has curated a major new series of films for everyone involved in organ teaching. A summary of the series with links to all the films can be found here.

In this video, Gerard Brooks presents an illustrated survey of French and Belgian organ repertoire from the nineteenth century and suggests ways to expand your repertoire with pieces of various standards of difficulty by both familiar and unfamiliar composers.

David Pipe explores the musical styles which are part of the weekly repertoire of Catholic church musicians, with advice on accompanying responsorial psalms, hymns, and worship songs.

Andrew Cantrill-Fenwick draws on eight different periods and styles of music to suggest ways to build up an idiomatic improvisation.  The techniques he suggests are in a range of of difficulty, from possible hymn extensions to improvisation for the FRCO diploma examination.

Nicholas Cleobury gives an introduction to preparing one of Bach’s best known cantatas, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140, for performance with an orchestra.

We hear about organ studies at RCO-accredited City of London School, both in the classroom and the wider City churches and cathedrals.