Mayfair Organ Concert: Richard Gowers

Today's Mayfair Organ Concert is given by Richard Gowers (St George, Hanover Square), who will be performing the following programme:

Gigout - Rhapsodie sur des Noëls
JS Bach - Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland BWV 659
JS Bach - Trio super ,Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland' BWV 660
JS Bach - Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland BWV 661
Reger - Weihnachten Op. 145 No. 3
Dupré - Variaitons sur un Noël

Admission is free with a retiring collection.

Richard Gowers is Conductor Designate of the London Handel Orchestra and Choir of the 21st Century, and Director of Music at St George's Hanover Square, Handel’s church in London. As an organist, highlights of his 2024-2025 season include soloist debuts at the Berlin Philharmonie in a recital alongside the Brass of the Berlin Philharmonic, at the Musikverein in Vienna with trumpeter Matilda Lloyd and as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra at Lotte Concert Hall (Seoul), Suntory Hall (Tokyo), Symphony Hall (Osaka) and Oriental Arts Centre (Shanghai).  Last season he gave his directing debut with the Academy of Ancient Music at the Monreale Festival of Sacred Music in Sicily, as well as his debut at the London Handel Festival, directing Bach's St John Passion on Good Friday at St George's, Hanover Square. Further solo appearances to date include performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, and the Ulster Orchestra, and recitals at Toulouse Les Orgues, Westminster Abbey, Washington National Cathedral, Nikolaikirche, Leipzig, St. Eustache, Paris, and King’s College, Cambridge.  

His critically-acclaimed recording of Messiaen’s La Nativité du Seigneur was named a Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’, described in the magazine as “tremendously focused and intensely cerebral playing…[conveying] the fundamental musicality of the work”. He has frequently appeared live on BBC Radio 3, as well as on Radio 4, Classic FM, and BBC Television. 

As a pianist he specialises in song repertoire and chamber music. In 2017-19 he held a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Michael Dussek and Joseph Middleton and won prizes for song accompaniment and chamber music. He was awarded the Schubert Institute UK Prize at the 2019 Leeds Lieder Festival, and has appeared at Wigmore Hall, Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival and Oxford Lieder Festival and with singers such as Mary Bevan, Ashley Riches, Kieran Carrel and Helen Charlston. 

Gowers was a chorister at King’s College, Cambridge, where he sang the notorious ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ solo at the 2007 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, broadcast live on BBC Radio 4. He became a prizewinning Fellow of the Royal College of Organists aged 17, and subsequently spent a year at the Mendelssohn Conservatoire in Leipzig with a Nicholas Danby Trust bursary, before returning to King’s as Organ Scholar and graduating with a starred first in Music. He is currently studying for a Konzert Examen degree in Stuttgart with Nathan Laube. Richard Gowers is based in London, where he combines performing with teaching at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music. He was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in 2024. 

Host or Publisher St George's Hanover Square