Organ
The Academy’s comprehensive and specialist organ curriculum has a worldwide reputation. The course includes contemporary music seminars, improvisation, integration with Historical Performance studies, the history and repertoire of the organ and workshops by distinguished guest teachers such as Marie-Claire Alain, Kenneth Gilbert, Piet Kee, Kei Koito and Daniel Roth. In June 2002, a pioneering harmonium course began under the direction of Anne Page.
Students have regular access to organs in the ‘classical’ and 19th-century French symphonic traditions. The four-manual classical organ by Rieger in nearby St Marylebone Parish Church is part-owned by the Academy and used as its main teaching instrument and in 2013 a new three-manual symphonic organ, built by Orgelbau Kuhn, will be installed in the Duke’s Hall. A rare Neapolitan organ of 1763 by Michelangelo & Carlo Sanarica, restored in Italy by the renowned Riccardo Lorenzini, was inaugurated in spring 2004.
Postgraduates follow a curriculum designed for their individual needs. Performance practice projects are supervised by specialists and frequently take the form of overseas visits where repertoire study is matched to a specific organ-building tradition.
The one-year Organ Foundation Course is designed primarily for ‘gap-year’ students preparing either for Oxbridge organ scholarships or for those wishing to develop their organ playing and choral direction skills to a high level before university or conservatoire studies.
‘Welte Restored’, a recording on the unique recently-restored organ at Salomons near Tunbridge Wells, was released in 2011. The release features automatic Orchestrion rolls, Philharmonic rolls recorded by famous organists of the day, and more conventional performances made by Academy students. It was prepared in collaboration with Canterbury Christ Church University and can be heard at www.ram.ac.uk/music.
‘Grand Chorus’, a double-CD of 22 historic and important organs south of the Thames recorded in collaboration with the Southwark and South London Society of Organists, was released in 2006 and is documented at www.ram.ac.uk/SSLSO.
Jon Laukvik, Lionel Rogg, Daniel Roth, Marie-Claire Alain, Louis Robilliard, James O'Donnell
Open day: For further information contact Eileen-Rose McFadden on organ@ram.ac.uk
