Finding Anna

“Imaginative, open-minded and a brilliant musician, the organist and conductor Anna Lapwood is the dream ambassador for classical music.”
— Gramophone

The comments range from savour to sour. A recent Facebook post regarding the amazing Anna Lapwood — former director of music at Pembroke College, Cambridge and now resident organist of the Henry Willis organ at London’s Royal Albert Hall, an international TikTok star, arguably one of the most energetic twenty-nine-year-olds on the planet —  praised her prodigious ability while suggesting that a dalliance with popular music somehow cheapens her musical offering.

I could not disagree more.

From Facebook:

Dear organists…. This week something remarkable happened: for the first time in history, an organist attracted 13,000 people waiting in line for a (free) organ concert in Cologne. That is truly extraordinary. And the news is all over social media.

Anna Lapwood is without doubt a highly creative, hardworking, and exceptionally talented organist. She deserves recognition and applause for her achievements. She has brought the organ to the attention of a broad audience, many of whom previously saw it as a distant, old-fashioned instrument.

But let’s also remember that her work represents a special niche, not the daily reality of most organists. And hopefully, the wider organ culture—rooted in Bach, Buxtehude, Guilmant, Franck for example, as much as in living composers—will continue to thrive alongside this new wave of popularity. Let’s hope an organ concert doesn’t have to contain “Pirates of the Caribbean” to attract a small crowd.

I remember attending performances on the RAH organ while a student at the Royal College of Music in the late 1970s. I heard Virgil Fox, Carlo Curly, Jane Parker Smith and others who literally brought the house down. Certainly Fox and Curly pushed the limits of what we students thought as acceptable performance practice. They sure caught our attention however; they entertained and inspired us.

The UK enjoys a long tradition of civic organ recitalists, dating back to Edwin Lamare, W. T. Best, and George Thalben-Ball (I did hear him live at the Royal Festival Hall in 1979). Before regional centres had orchestras they had public spaces equipped with wonderful organs, some still in place and functional. Hire an orchestra? Hire an organist? You do the math.

Alongside such community music series stands the ancient English Cathedral tradition empowered by hundreds of former organ scholars trained up at university chapels at Oxford and Cambridge. Anna Lapwood is a product and exponent of this system, only just “retired” from Director of Music at Pembrooke College, Cambridge in order to pursue her international performance career. Watching her practice at the RAH through the early hours of a morning, knowing that she would soon catch a train to Cambridge for daily chapel services boggles my mind. Her website biography reads in part:

Anna Lapwood MBE has reached audiences far beyond the classical mainstream with her striking blend of musicianship, enthusiasm and charm, and eloquent artistry. In demand worldwide as concerto soloist and recitalist, she has attracted over two million social media followers and regularly connects with listeners as a presenter on BBC Radio and Television, and Classic FM.

Her discography as an exclusive SONY Classical artist continues to grow, most recently with the 2025 release of Firedove, an album of original compositions and works freshly arranged for organ. In Spring 2025, Anna was included in the annual Sunday Times Young Power List, celebrating the 30 most powerful people under 30 in the UK. A recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s prestigious Gamechanger award, Anna completes her transformational decade as Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge in August 2025 with an all-night BBC Prom at London’s Royal Albert Hall, where she holds the position of Resident Organist.

Just reading these notes exhausts me. Every once in a while in the musical world a musician for the ages arrives — J. S. Bach; W. A. Mozart; Yehudi Menuhin; Vladimir Horowitz. As students, we watched 3-5 performances each week all over London, wondering how we might fit in with such a musical milieu. I gave a decade of my life to attempting some sort of balance between what I saw as possible with what was possible for me. Now decades later, a hardly ever listen to, let alone perform musically. I have moved on to other interests and vocations.

Still, I have these amazing, wonderful memories. A new generation now peers through a looking glass, finding Anna and all she brings to us, traditional and experimental. Thank you Anna Lapwood.

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