It has been a very strange month hasn’t it? Easter celebrations were certainly not what organists are used to. I am sure there were many a new celebratory voluntary prepared for Easter Sunday that will have to wait for its first outing. I certainly missed my opportunity to play at Compline in Holy Week and several other service playing opportunities.

And yet, despite the lockdown, there has been a huge amount of activity in the organ world. Many organists have posted videos online, some daily, others several times a day and one of two, such as Beauty in Sound have played full recitals, hymn request sessions and more on a regular basis. These have been a great opportunity for the organ community to come together and bring real joy to congregations they play for each week in normal circumstances as well as introduce those not so familiar with organ music to the joys it has to offer. Not only that, it has been a superb opportunity for us to hear each other play.

The first few weeks of lockdown fell towards the end of term and so I was busy learning new skills of studying on line. I enjoyed a somewhat different Easter holiday to the one we had planned, but that gave me time to work on The Organ Manual website, add pages, liaise with guest bloggers and more. Additions to the site are in the table below. It also gave me time to apply for a grant to help promote the site some more (news to be shared in due course of who with and more if successful!). In order to put the application I looked into numbers following in various areas. It shocked me to realise there are now well over 1000 followers of the site and various areas of social media. That, I think, is incredible!

Speaking of online – have you seen all the courses and information the RCSM and RCO? These are new and brilliant initiatives. I’ve enjoyed the sessions I have taken part in and can highly recommend them to organ players of all levels either seeking qualifications or to develop their skills.

I have been delighted that ScoreStore and Viscount Organs Wales have approached me and started advertising on the site. I hope you agree the adverts are relevant and whilst prominent don’t detract from the purpose or look of the site in any way. I do hope you will be able to support them. Going forward, there won’t be hundreds of adverts and my intention is never to have two companies offering the same products advertising at the same time. However, the income from the is useful for the site and helps me contribute towards the costs of the site package and domain.

I hope you enjoyed the April features by Alex Trigg on An Organ Scholarship and by Sam and Katie on their Pipe Up Organ Day. In May we have articles by Stephen Mansfield who writes about organ workshops for youngsters and Mick Perrier who tells us about the RSCM Conference which took place in March – an event not to be missed next year!

As always, if you have any information you’d like added to the website, news, events or experiences you’d like to share with me and The Organ Manual followers, please do get in touch.

Stay safe and well.

Very best wishes

Anna x