The College promotes an awareness of today’s music through the examination syllabuses, and some of Cecilia McDowall’s organ works have been set for study at ARCO in 2024-5.  The composer reveals her influences, inspirations and motivations in a fascinating interview with RCO Chief Examiner Stephen Farr, who gave the first performance of her First Flight in 2021.

The recent centenary of Stefans Grové’s birth has been a catalyst for Herman Jordaan to investigate Grové’s monumental Afrika Hymnus, where the compositional materials, timbres and resonances, often removed from organ conventions, are stimulating and rewarding for the player and listener alike.  The author puts the music in the context of the environment and cultures of his native South Africa, and has prepared recorded music examples to accompany the article.

‘The most brilliantly bonkers night out’, ORGANOKE is a sell-out evening of community singing, and has brought a new audience to the 1844 Bishop & Son organ at St Giles, Camberwell.

In ‘Graphics, extended techniques, timbral diversity: collaborative approaches to contemporary organ music’, Daniel Matheison and Thomas Metcalf explore the composer-performer relationship, examining the relationships between a composer’s intention and a performer’s agency.

Tom Winpenny has recorded much of Francis Pott’s music, and this richly illustrated article on the organ works of Francis Pott is filled with an interpreter’s insights. Pott’s compositions are ‘revelatory creations of intellectual rigour and profound humanity,’ says Winpenny, and in his commentary and music examples we become absorbed in Pott’s preoccupations and motivations.

In ‘Michael Tippett’s shorter choral music: some personal reflections’, Nicholas Cleobury has distilled his work on, and with, Tippett over many years into an engaging commentary on some wonderful but often forgotten music.

There’s a powerful astrological theme to Martin Baker’s organ recital at St Michael’s Cornhill on Monday 13 March, as he gives the world premiere of Jonathan Hagger’s Great Conjunction Triptych: Seven Vignettes for Organ.

Tom Winpenny discusses the organ works of Judith Bingham, set for the FRCO examination written papers for 2021-2022.

Organist Kevin Bowyer gave the first UK performance of Xenakis’ organ piece Gmeeorh. He discusses aspects of performing this remarkable piece, with excerpts played at the organ of St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York City.