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:

JS Bach - Canonic Variations on ‘Von Himmel hoch da komm’ ich her’ BWV 769

Frank Martin - Passacaille pour Orgue (1944)

Dupré - Variations sur un Noël, Op. 20

Admission is free with a retiring collection in support of the continuation of the series.

Richard Gowers is Principal Conductor 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. He appears regularly as a soloist at the world's most prestigious venues, including multiple performances at the Philharmonie Berlin at the invitation of the Berlin Philharmonic, at the Musikverein in Vienna with trumpeter Matilda Lloyd, Suntory Hall, Tokyo as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Antonio Pappano, and further solo appearances with the LPO, Philharmonia and Ulster Orchestra. 

As a conductor he gave his debut with the Academy of Ancient Music at the Monreale Festival of Sacred Music in Sicily and appears regularly at the London Handel Festival directing programmes of Handel and Bach's Passions. Active also in the world of opera, he was Assistant Conductor to Finnegan Downie Dear at the 2025 Aix-en-Provence Festival and directed the children's chorus in Barry Kosky's Carmen at the Royal Opera House. 

As an organist he presents recitals across Europe, Australia and the USA, and performs regularly with trumpeter Matilda Lloyd, with their album Fantasia released on Chandos Records.  His own 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. 

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. In 2025 he completed the Konzert Examen course in Stuttgart with Prof. Nathan Laube. Richard Gowers is based in London, where he combines performing with teaching at the Royal Academy of Music and Cambridge University, for which he founded an annual online Harmony and Counterpoint course. He was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in 2024. 

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