Watch the College’s 2020 Conferment of Diplomas ceremony here, in full, or as edited highlights, and download the Programme, and the full texts of the speeches and citations.

Watch the College’s 2019 Conferment of Diplomas ceremony in full or as edited highlights. The ceremony at Southwark Cathedral on Saturday 9th March saw the College present Diplomas and Certificates to 53 Members of the College, and award the Medal of the Royal College of Organists to two distinguished practitioners in the field of organ music.

Watch the College’s 2018 Conferment of Diplomas ceremony in full, or as edited highlights.

Last Saturday, in the splendid setting of Southwark Cathedral, the RCO presented Diplomas and Certificates to 49 members of the college who were successful in the examinations in the past year – and for the first time this included the RCO’s new qualification, the Certificate of Accredited Membership (CAM). Distinguished guests were awarded the RCO Medal, and Peter Stevens gave the Ede & Ravenscroft recital – pictures of the day’s event as it unfolded.

Watch the College’s 2017 Conferment of Diplomas ceremony in full or as edited highlights.

The RCO management team is required to pull together on Conferment day and perform some interesting tasks, outside our usual skillsets. First thing in the morning wicker baskets arrive full of assorted gowns and hoods, and the robing department has to make sure that everyone gets the correct gorgeous garments for the ceremony. We stuff the programmes with appropriate fliers and donation envelopes, and become ushers and usherettes as soon as the audience starts to arrive. And all in amongst the Royal College of Organists holds its Annual General Meeting…

Two young RCO members are carving out careers for themselves as composers, alongside their organ playing. Both Matthew Kelley and Tammas Slater won in the junior category the BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers competition in 2015, and for both of them this has been a life-changer, leading to a series of further commissions.

Joe McHardy was convinced he’d failed his FRCO earlier this year, so when he got emails telling him not only that he had passed, but been awarded the Durrant Prize, and then the John Birch Scholarship, he thought there must have been some mistake. He tells us what the Scholarship, and the RCO, have meant for him.

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