Lunchtime Recitals: Summer 2006
James Parsons: 6 September
 James Parsons with the Festival Organ at the Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, Oundle
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Programme
British organist, James Parsons, is one of the organ’s most articulate advocates on today’s musical scene. He is well known both for his international career as a concert organist and recording artist — as too for Oundle International Festival, which he founded in 1985, with its unique and influential summer schools for young organists, promoted in partnership with the Royal College of Organists under the banner Oundle for Organists. Regular recital engagements throughout the British Isles, and tours to such countries as Holland, Scandinavia, USA, Czech Republic, Iceland and South Africa have received warm critical acclaim. James, Birmingham-born, was educated at King Edward's School Stourbridge, and owes many years of formative experience in organ playing to George Miles, esteemed organist and “maker-of-organists”, himself the pupil of a pupil of a pupil of Karl Straube (Kantor of the Leipzig Thomaskirche). James proceeded to the Parry-Wood Organ Scholarship at Exeter College, Oxford, and to post-graduate study at the Royal Academy of Music. Key influences upon his musical development have been organists Ralph Downes, Geraint Jones, Peter Hurford, and, more recently, Jacques van Oortmerssen. From 1976 until 1998 James taught at at Oundle School, latterly as Director of Music, where he played a key role in the School’s acquiring a magnificent Danish-built Frobenius organ — an instrument whose classic timbres have become known throughout the world through James’s recordings and the Oundle for Organists programme. Published articles, and appearances on radio and television documentaries have further broadcast James’s infectious and knowledgeable enthusiasm for the organ and its music. He serves on the Council, Academic Board and Examiners’ Panel of the Royal College of Organists, and was the first Education Editor for Organists’ Review magazine. He is a visiting tutor at Birmingham Conservatoire, a popular teacher at St Giles International Organ School with pupils in London and Cambridge and Newcastle, and a Vice-President of The Organ Club. |
