Forthcoming events
There may be members who would like to join us but have transport difficulties. If this is the case for you, please do email the Association at organistassociation@gmail.com so that we can try to put you in touch with members attending events who may be able to help you with this.
EOA events in the pipeline for your diaries include:
Saturday 21st September – All day visit to organs in Woodbridge and Orford
We will visit three very different organs in coastal Suffolk, an area which the Association hasn’t visited for many years, including the newly installed Peter Collins organ at St Bartholomew’s Church in Orford. The schedule for our visit is expected to be as follows:
10 am – St Mary’s Church, Woodbridge – 2 manual & pedal organ by Bishop & Sons.
11.30am – St Mary’s Church, Great Bealings – 2 manual & pedal organ by Binns.
Lunch in Orford – NB: must be pre-booked.
2.30pm – St Bartholomew’s Church, Orford – 3 manual & pedal organ by Peter Collins.
If you would like to join us for this visit, please email Philip Prior using organistassociation@gmail.com as soon as possible, so that the lunch venue can be confirmed.
October – 3 day extended visit to play organs in Bath
Following our previous extended visits to Bristol and Portsmouth, your Committee are formulating plans for another midweek 3 day extended visit to Bath in October 2024. For this to happen, we do need enough support from members and friends to make the time needed to organise this trip worthwhile. Possible venues include Bath Abbey and Downside Abbey, along with local Parish churches in the city, including the two at Bathwick. If you are interested in joining us for this visit, then please do email EOA Vice Chairman, Dr Michaela Cottee, as soon as possible using michaelacottee@gmail.com to express an interest, so that a decision on the feasibility of this event can be made very swiftly.
Saturday 2nd November – Afternoon Composite recital at Old Independent Church, Haverhill
Your committee was delighted to accept an invitation from EOA Vice Chairman, Treasurer and Membership Secretary Dr Michaela Cottee, to be involved with her 60th birthday celebration composite recital at Haverhill URC in November. Michaela has invited some excellent players from the Association and outside, including EOA President Philip Prior, as well as friends from other areas and this should show of the church’s excellent 3 manual and pedal Binns organ to its best! Do put this date in your diary as we help Michaela celebrate this milestone in her life!
Further details about these events and future EOA events for 2024 will be found in the next newsletter.
Non-EOA Events
Events Promoted by Members
Please send your contributions to the list of organ recitals and concerts that you or your church are going to perform to the EOA email address: organistassociation@gmail.com.
Here is a list of organ recitals and members’ concerts in our area (don’t forget to check with the venue before you travel that the event is still happening!):
Saturday 7th September 2024 at 6pm – St Georges’ Lutheran Church, London – Richard Brasier (St George’s Lutheran Church, London)
Saturday 7th September 2024 at 7.30pm – St. Andrew’s Church, Halstead
St. Andrew’s organist William Janssen will present an organ recital themed ‘East Anglian connections’. The program will feature organ music by composers associated with the East Anglian region and Halstead. On the program is music by two past organists of St. Andrew’s, Thomas Adams and George Oldroyd. Other composers featured are Norfolk born Bernard Johnson and composer/organists who at some point in their career were working in the region, Thomas Tertius Noble (Colchester and Ely), Charles Villiers Stanford (Cambridge) and none less than Gustav Holst (Thaxted). Admission is free with a retiring collection. There will be an interval with refreshments. Don’t miss this opportunity the hear the fine ‘Father’ Henry Willis organ of St. Andrew’s put through its paces.
Recent Events
Saturday 20th September 2023 – All day visit to organs in Basildon inc. St Martin’s
We visited two very different venues for this all-day visit to the Basildon area, which yielded unexpected surprises for all both musical and architectural! Eight members took part in the event. First was St Michael’s Fobbing which is a lovely medieval church, overlooking the modern Thames Gateway development by the River Thames. Daryl East hosted our visit here in the morning, and very kindly provided refreshments. After an excellent lunch at The White Lion in Fobbing we drove to the large modern church of St Martin of Tours, in central Basildon, designed as part of the development of the new town, by Sir Walter Tapper. Along with generous playing time, and more excellent refreshments, we were able to visit the chambers of the newly installed chancel organ with its interesting array of pipework. Our thanks to EOA Committee member Andrew Stevens for organising an excellent and fascinating day for players and non-players alike.
Tuesday 24th – Thursday 26th October 2023 – Extended visit to organs in the Portsmouth and Southampton area
A handful of intrepid EOA members booked into the Holiday Inn in Portsmouth for a few days of friendship together as part of visits to an extremely wide range of pipe organs in Portsmouth and Southampton, all organised by EOA Committee member Lyndon Ford. We began on the afternoon of Tuesday 24th October, at Southampton Guildhall, with its unique 1937 John Compton organ, complete with two consoles: (one classical of 127 stops and one theatre organ of 196 stops), creating two very different large instruments in the same hall. After the Guildhall, we headed to the rather unusual parish church of St Faith’s, Lee on the Solent. On Wednesday morning, after breakfast, we walked to Portsmouth Guildhall, which has one of the last organs that the John Compton Organ Company built in 1963. From there, we drove out to St Mark’s Church, North End, a modern Anglo-Catholic church keeping a weekly choral tradition during Sung Mass, and then to the church of All Saints, Denmead. For our last day in Portsmouth, Lyndon had fixed for us to play the organs in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St John’s, and the Anglican Cathedral of St Thomas. Our sincere and very grateful thanks must go to EOA Committee Member (and Hampshire resident!) Lyndon Ford for the incredible amount of time that organising such a visit takes, and for the wonderful range of playing opportunities which he arranged for us over the three days, with organs both classical and theatrical!
Saturday 25th November 2023 – Members’ Composite Recital at St James the Great, Colchester
Four EOA members accepted the invitation to perform a wide variety of pieces of their own choice to an appreciative audience of 20 people at St James the Great, East Hill, Colchester. All four players sounded comfortable playing on the very fine organ there, originally built in 1872 by Morten and Taylor and then reduced in size to 2 manuals & pedals when it was installed in St James the Great by J W Walker in 1954, to be followed by later tonal additions and changes by Cedric Arnold in 1970. Our thanks to Philip Prior for organising this exciting event for us and to those others who performed so well for us.
Saturday 20th January 2024 – Music Quiz Night at Broomfield Church Hall
Under the excellent quiz mastering of EOA Committee member, Jonathan Lilley, two teams (one from the EOA and one from Broomfield church led by its organist Jill Parkin) fought a very competitive quiz night at Broomfield Church Hall. Jonathan’s carefully put together quiz combined aspects and styles of several quiz styles. Rounds were wide-ranging, all involving listening to recordings or Jonathan’s excellent piano playing. Our thanks must go to Jonathan for all the time he put into organising what was an excellent event, with lots of fun and laughter as well as music!
Saturday 24th February 2024 – All day visit to organs in Halstead and Earl’s Colne
Our day in visiting churches in the Colne Valley in North Essex, began at St Andrew’s Parish Church, Halstead, the medieval parish church of the town. We then moved to the next venue, just a few minutes away, St Francis RC Church, in Halstead. After lunch at the The Lion Pub, at Earls Colne, the party moved across the road to St Andrew’s Parish Church, Earls Colne. Everyone who participated enjoyed the day and the wide variety of organs we visited, and it was good to hear newer members taking to the organ bench as well.
Saturday 23rd March 2024 – “Bring and Share organ music for Lent and Easter”
6 EOA members and friends accepted the invitation to bring along a couple of pieces with a Lenten or Eastertide theme to introduce, share, and perform on the fine organ 3 manual and pedal organ of St Peter’s Bocking, which offers much to the inventive player as provide a wide palette of colours needed for range of organ schools. There was a huge range of styles and periods shown in the choice played. Everyone encountered some new seasonal pieces which they hadn’t heard before, as well as being reminded of some old favourites, and all were left with plenty of new ideas to add to their own repertoire and usefully include in services during Lent and Easter next year!
Saturday 20th April 2024 – A Masterclass to celebrate the centenary of the death of Sir Charles Stanford
In this, the centenary year of the death of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, your committee were keen to organise at least one event to celebrate this important figure in British Organ Music, and that would encourage us all to explore Stanford’s organ music a bit more deeply. We were very pleased to return to Broomfield Church for this event, with an excellent 2 manual and pedal 1926 Hill Norman and Beard pipe organ, recently restored by Andrew Stevens. We were absolutely delighted that Dr Antony Gritten (Head of Undergraduate Programmes at the Royal Academy of Music) agreed to lead a masterclass on Stanford’s organ music for us. Antony is a very respected academic and international recitalist and will himself be performing all of Stanford’s organ sonatas this year in recitals: he is no stranger to the technical challenges that Stanford’s music brings for the player.
Saturday 4th May 2024 – Visit to All Saints and St Andrew’s Churches, Hertford and Haileybury College
Our final visit for the year was an all-day visit to Hertford and Haileybury College, once again organised by Andrew Stevens, and where a small number of EOA members we were delighted to be joined by a handful of members of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Organists’ Association, led by their current President Gary Sieling. This event was important in that it provided an excellent opportunity for EOA members and committee to meet and chat with their colleagues in the Beds and Herts Association, and to consider ways forward for the future which may include a joint event each year, along with larger bi-annual IAO Eastern region events, similar to the Couperin Day that we hosted in Chelmsford Cathedral in May 2023. Our thanks to Andrew Stevens for organising an excellent day’s playing!
Saturday 15th June – The 74th AGM of the Association
Although only 5 EOA Members were able to attend the 2024 EOA AGM held in the Octagon Hall of St Mary’s Church, in Maldon to celebrate and review the Association’s year from 2023-2024, the meeting received full and inspiring reports from its President and Treasurer leaving no doubt about the secure financial state the Association is now to be found in, after a very successful year, with membership remaining at around 50 members. After the business part of the meeting, and tea and cakes provided by the church, it was a great pleasure to have Samuel Bristow (Assistant Organist, Chelmsford Cathedral) to play for our AGM recital this year, on the Klais organ of St Mary’s Church, Maldon. His North-German influenced programme showed off the colours of the organ and his excellent playing skills, honed at venues including Coventry, St Paul’s and Salisbury Cathedrals.
Saturday 28th July – All day visit to organs in Southend
Our newly elected Committee member and Minutes Secretary, Chris Denney, organised a day for us in Southend visiting St Augustine’s in Thorpe Bay, Cornerstone United Reformed Church on Bournemouth Park Road and Kings Rd URC in Westcliff.
Saturday 10th August – Summer Picnic at Waltham Abbey
Jonathan Lilley kindly offered to host this year’s summer party as an afternoon/evening picnic at Waltham Abbey, using the Church Hall as a base and with the Abbey organ available for players.