Organ Recitals

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Watch Again!

15 March: Dewi Rees (Westminster Abbey)

JS Bach (1685-1750)
- Prelude in C BWV 547

Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
- Romanza 'The White Rock'

Judith Bingham (b. 1952)
- St Bride, assisted by angels

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
- Sonata in B flat

Dewi Rees is the Organ Scholar of Westminster Abbey, where he shares the playing for services with the Sub-Organist and Assistant Organist, and assists in the training of the Choristers and the running of the Music Department.   

Dewi read Music at Jesus College, Cambridge, where, as Organ Scholar and then Assistant Organist, he performed in services, concerts and recordings with the College’s two choirs. He moved to St Albans Cathedral in 2020 to spend two years as Organ Scholar where, in addition to assisting in the daily worship of the Cathedral, he performed at the St Albans International Organ Festival and featured on CD recordings in an organ duet by Elizabeth Lutyens with Tom Winpenny, and with St Albans Cathedral Choir. 

Thomas Allery is passionate about teaching and encouraging students to develop a range of musical skills from a young age. He has created numerous educational resources which link performance with musical theory, aural awareness, keyboard understanding, and harmony to encourage the development of a well-rounded musician. He is regularly developing new educational materials which encourage an understanding of musical theory through the repertoire that students are performing.

He is organ tutor at City of London School and Radley College, and teaches basso continuo at the Royal College of Music.

Having studied at Oxford University and the Royal College of Music, Thomas recently completed an Artist Diploma in harpsichord at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he studied with James Johnstone and Carole Cerasi. From 2014 – 19 Thomas was Director of chapel music at Worcester College, Oxford and was also Assistant Organist of Magdalen College. Thomas is in regular demand as a continuo player on organ and harpsichord, for chamber music and orchestral repertoire. He is the regular continuo player of award winning chamber ensemble, Ensemble Hesperi. With this group, he has performed at numerous leading UK festivals, presenting the programme ‘The Pheasant’s Eye’ which showcases Scottish Baroque Music with highland dance. In 2014-15, Thomas was a Junior Fellow in Harpsichord and Continuo at the Royal College of Music and was a Britten-Pears young artist as a continuo player, performing Bach cantatas under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe at Snape Maltings, in 2019. He is currently undertaking research into historical continuo treatises from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and exploring how they can be used in keyboard education today.

Jeremy is the Assistant Director of Music and Sub-organist at Rochester Cathedral, where he accompanies and conducts the Cathedral choir for some of the daily services. He additionally spent two terms as Acting Director of Music, where he had oversight of all musical provision at the Cathedral including services to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Jeremy is also Director of the Cathedral’s Voluntary Choir, Assistant Director of Music to the Rochester Choral Society, and an organ tutor at The King’s School, Rochester.

Simon Hogan is the Sub-Organist and Assistant Director of Music at Southwark Cathedral, a post which he combines with being Organist to the Cathedral Singers of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and a portfolio of freelance work in and around London.

Simon was a chorister at St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, and it was during this time that he started learning the piano and organ, developing a passion for cathedral music which has stayed with him to this day.  Following organ scholarships at Bristol and Salisbury Cathedrals, he moved to London in 2008 to study organ performance at the Royal College of Music, where he subsequently graduated with first class honours.  During his final year at the RCM Simon was Organ Scholar at St Paul’s Cathedral, where he regularly accompanied and directed the world-famous choir, and gave recitals on the renowned Willis organ.  In 2012 Simon moved to Southwell, Nottinghamshire, where he spent seven years as Assistant Director of Music at Southwell Minster.  Here he directed the Minster’s girls’ choir and the Minster Chorale, and played the organ for all services, recordings, tours and broadcasts.  

As a soloist Simon has given recitals in venues across the UK, including the cathedrals of Durham, Hereford and Westminster, The Albert Hall, Nottingham, and Rochdale Town Hall.  Recent notable performances include the complete organ symphonies of Louis Vierne in a single day, the première of a new work for eight organs and electronics by Wolfgang Mitterer for Karlsruhe’s 300th anniversary, and a performance of the Poulenc Organ Concerto with the Orchestra of the Kolobov Novaya Opera Theatre, Moscow, directed by Jan Latham-Koenig. 

Simon has studied organ performance with Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin, Daniel Cook, David Graham, Robert Quinney and Colin Walsh. He studied conducting with Paul Brough and Peter Stark and harpsichord with Terrance Charlston.  Simon is the principal organist for JAM - an organisation which commissions and performs new music for brass, organ and choir by leading contemporary composers - and as such he has enjoyed working with some of the country’s finest ensembles, including the BBC Singers, the Chapel Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge, Gesualdo Six and Onyx Brass.