An internationally renowned department, currently attracting students from the UK, Australia, Hong Kong and France. The organ faculty offers programmes for organists to study solo repertoire, improvisation, organology, harmonium, and performance practice in a variety of contexts and styles through visits abroad and in the UK. Study trips abroad include visits to France, North and South Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Transylvania and Spain. Recent performance opportunities include events at London's Royal Festival Hall, the BBC Proms with the combined orchestras of the Juilliard School and the Royal Academy of Music conducted by John Adams, Saint-Saëns's Third Symphony conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier, Britten's War Requiem at the RFH with Marin Alsop, and the 70th-birthday Concerts for Trevor Pinnock at Wigmore Hall and Canterbury Cathedral, plus performances and BBC broadcasts from Neresheim Abbey, Bavaria. Students have also had the opportunity to undertake recordings as well as regular solo and ensemble performances. The department offers exciting and responsive instruments, including the newly commissioned 43-stop Sir Elton John & Ray Cooper organ in the Duke's Hall built by Orgelbau Kuhn, a fine four-manual Rieger organ in St Marylebone Parish Church and a variety of excellent mechanical action practice instruments. Distinguished alumni hold appointments at Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, St Paul's Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral, Durham Cathedral, Gonville and Caius Cambridge, King's College London, HM Chapel Royal at the Tower of London, and others.
