Anne Marsden Thomas

Anne Marsden Thomas is an organist, organ teacher and author of 20 books.

Anne founded St. Giles International Organ School in 1992 and directed it until the Royal College of Organists (RCO) adopted it in 2012.  The RCO employed her as Head and Senior Teacher of the organ school until 2016; during this time she increased the number of RCO accredited teachers from nine to twenty-three, and, when she left, some 250 students were taking individual tuition with RCO accredited teachers.  From 1996 to 2016 she directed this annual residential summer course, first for the Royal School of Church Music and from 2008 for the Royal College of Organists. 

Anne has been Director of Music at St. Giles Cripplegate Church, City of London, since 1982. 

Drew Cantrill-Fenwick

Drew is one of the UK’s most experienced and versatile church musicians. His career has taken him to three continents, working in schools, churches and cathedrals, and he has appeared in some of the world’s most prestigious venues as conductor and organist. He is a prize-winning Fellow of the RCO and an examiner for the College and ABRSM. In addition to directing the RCO Summer Course, he is a major contributor to iRCO, the College’s online learning platform, and his new tutor, ‘Fingers & Feet: a Journey to the Organ Bench’, written with Robin Harrison, has just been published by the RSCM.

Drew is currently Director of Music at St George’s Church, Jesmond, Newcastle, where he is responsible for the historic 4-manual Lewis-Binns organ, and has just completed a PhD at Newcastle University. He lives in the North Pennines.

Gerdi Troskie

Gerdi Troskie completed her BMus and MMus degrees at the University of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and continued with post-graduate organ studies at the Amsterdam Conservatorium under Jacques van Oortmerssen. She was awarded the Conservatorium’s Soloist’s Diploma (organ) in 1996.

In 1996, Gerdi moved to the UK. She taught organ and musicianship at the Royal College of Music Junior Department from 1998 to 2005 and started teaching for the St Giles International Organ School in 2000. She currently works as an Accredited Teacher for the Royal College of Organists and as piano and organ teacher at Bromsgrove School and the King’s School, Worcester.

Darius Battiwalla

Darius took up the post of Leeds City Organist in 2017, programming the very successful Town Hall recital series and giving regular solo concerts. He is currently overseeing the renewal of the Leeds Town Hall organ. Recent performances include the recitals at the Cathedrals of Coventry, Lincoln, Ripon, and St Albans, with appearances with Collegium Vocale Gent in Ghent and Amsterdam.  He recently premiered a new work by Ian Farrington for organ with the Black Dyke Band, and was part of the premiere of a new work for four organs by James Wood commemorating the Great Storm of 1674, performed simultaneously by organists across Europe. He regularly plays with the Halle and BBC Philharmonic orchestras.

Darius is music director of the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, and has been guest chorus master with other choirs including the CBSO chorus and the Netherlands Radio Choir. He has had arrangements commissioned by the Halle, CBSO, Bournemouth SO and Black Dyke Band.

Joseph McHardy

Joseph McHardy is a Scottish-born organist, harpsichordist, and conductor of Congolese and English heritage. Educated at the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Academy of Music, London, he spent a decade working internationally as a harpsichordist and conductor, performing and recording with leading ensembles including the Berlin Philharmonic, Le Concert d’Astrée, and The Gabrieli Consort and Players.

From 2017 to 2023 he served as Director of Music of HM Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, preparing the choir for major state occasions including the State Funeral of Elizabeth II and the Coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla; since 2023 he has been based at Christ Church, Chelsea, with responsibility for the historic 1779 England and Russell organ.

He has conducted the BBC Singers in broadcast performances, appears regularly on BBC Radio 3, and is active as a writer and broadcaster. Deeply engaged with Black music history, he has directed Chineke! Voices in the music of Vicente Lusitano and co-edited Lusitano’s complete Latin motets (forthcoming with A-R Editions), contributing also to Grove Music Online. Alongside his freelance work, he has been Director of Music at St Paul’s Girls’ School, London, since 2023.

Jonathan Bunney

In 2000 Jonathan was awarded a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music. His teachers have included Anne Marsden Thomas, Nigel Stark, David Graham and Margaret Phillips. During his time at the RCM he won all the major prizes for organ.

In 2004 Jonathan became Director of Music at St. Giles-in-the-Fields and in 2008 he returned to the RCM to study for a Masters in Advanced Performance, achieving a distinction. He was also awarded the Walford Davies Prize for his performance of Louis Vierne’s Sixth Symphony. Since graduating, Jonathan has worked as a freelance musician as well as Head of Music at Cameron House School in Chelsea from 2011-2014.

Jonathan has made several broadcasts on radio and part of his CD ‘Let the Pealing Organ Blow’ produced by Regents Records on the historic organ of St. Giles-in-the Fields was broadcast on BBC Radio 2.

Hilary Punnett

Hilary has spent the past 20 years working as a conductor and organist across England and Canada, including at the cathedrals of Christ Church Oxford, Chelmsford, and Lincoln.

Her experience as a conductor extends from professional to amateur, and from young choristers through to adult choirs. She holds a Master of Music in Organ Performance from McGill University in Montreal, is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, and has an MA in Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music.

She is currently Assistant Director of Music at St Paul’s Cathedral, London, and works alongside Andrew Carwood to deliver the world-class music programme at St Paul’s, which is at a moment of significant expansion.

Daniel Moult

Daniel Moult is an internationally recognised British organist, teacher and broadcaster. He is Head of Organ Studies at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where he leads a large and active organ department, and also teaches for the Royal College of Organists. Educated at Manchester Grammar School and St John’s College, Oxford, where he was organ scholar, he later pursued postgraduate study at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Jacques van Oortmerssen.

From 1995 to 2002, Moult served as organist and assistant director of music at Coventry Cathedral. He has since performed widely as a soloist across the UK, Europe, Australia and Asia, and has appeared with orchestras including the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and Kammerorchester Basel. Alongside his concert career, he is a frequent broadcaster on BBC radio and television.

Moult is also well known for his work on film and educational projects. He co-wrote and presented The Elusive English Organ (2010), a documentary exploring the history of the English organ, and has released several acclaimed recordings and teaching editions. His work combines performance, scholarship and advocacy for the organ and its repertoire.

Robin Harrison

Dr Robin Harrison FRSA studied with Noel Rawsthorne, Margaret Phillips, Roger Fisher and Graham Eccles. His teaching pedagogy, connecting aural training with playing and improvisation up to postgraduate levels (aimed at the most advanced players), is published within The Routledge Companion to Aural Skills Pedagogy and this informed the development of courses and masterclasses for The Maestro Online platform.

He spends much time teaching the paperwork side of the RCO diplomas and thoroughly enjoys it!

William Whitehead

William Whitehead has gained a wide reputation for his engaging and inspiring interpretation of the organ repertoire. His concert career was given a boost when he won first prize at the Odense International organ competition in Denmark, 2004. Since then he has travelled widely giving concerts in Europe and the US. Recent venues include The Royal Festival Hall, London (his debut at this venue), Westminster Cathedral, The Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms and Berlin Dom. A recorded artist on dozens of discs, he is most recently to be heard as organ soloist in Handel’s Op 7 No 1 Organ Concerto with the Gabrieli Consort and Players (Winged Lion label). His work as a continuo player brings him together with groups such as the Gabrieli Consort, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (Proms 2023). 2015’s Proms saw him appear with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Trained at Oxford University and the Royal Academy of Music, William Whitehead is now a sought after organ teacher, teaching many students at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Previously he has held appointments as Assistant Organist, Rochester Cathedral, and Director of Music at St Mary’s Bourne Street, and is now the Associate Organist of Lincoln’s Inn in London. He has been a professor at both the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College of Music. As curator of the Orgelbüchlein project, William Whitehead is seeing through a large-scale project to ‘complete’ Bach’s unfinished manuscript collection. This international project has already garnered much interest and is fast becoming a cross-section of the most interesting composers at work today.