Anna Lapwood
Biography
Anna Lapwood MBE is an organist, conductor and broadcaster. She is the official Organist of the Royal Albert Hall and is Artist in Association with the BBC Singers. In Spring 2025, Anna was included in the annual Sunday Times Young Power List, celebrating the 30 most powerful people under 30 in the UK. Anna completes her transformational decade as Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge in August 2025 with an all-night BBC Prom at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Anna made her debut at the BBC Proms in 2021 with The Hallé and Sir Mark Elder, as soloist in Saint-Saëns’ ‘Organ Symphony’, and gave her Proms recital debut two years later. She returns to the Proms in August 2025 to host a special all-night programme, ‘From Dark Till Dawn’, featuring performances from Barokksolistene, Hayato Sumino and many more. A concerto soloist with leading orchestras and conductors, including the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Antonio Pappano, Anna will serve as Artist in Residence with The Hallé throughout the 2025-26 season. Recent and forthcoming concerts include performances at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, the Sydney Opera House, Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles) and Boardwalk Hall (Atlantic City).
Deeply committed to the creation of new work for organ and choir, Anna’s recent commissions include compositions by Kristina Arakelyan, Olivia Belli, Max Richter and Lucy Walker. Her desire to explore fresh creative pathways is likewise reflected in pioneering partnerships with, among others, Aurora, Florence and the Machine, Raye, Jules Buckley, Alison Balsom, Bonobo and Benedict Cumberbatch. She attracted capacity audiences in 2024 to her first UK tour promoted by AEG Presents and is set to headline a second nationwide tour for AEG during the Christmas season in 2025.
Anna’s debut solo organ album, Images, released on Signum Records in 2021, features her transcription for organ of the ‘Four Sea Interludes’ from Britten’s Peter Grimes. Three albums with the Choirs of Pembroke College have also been released on Signum to great acclaim. Her exclusive relationship with SONY Classical was launched with an EP, ‘Midnight Sessions at the Royal Albert Hall’, followed in September 2023 by her debut album, LUNA, which rose to No.1 in the UK’s classical chart and became the year’s fastest selling classical album. Her latest album, Firedove, is scheduled for release in May 2025.
Anna is an ardent champion of the organ. A gifted communicator, hailed by Gramophone as ‘the dream ambassador for classical music’, she reaches a vast audience through her performances and via social media, attracting over 2 million followers across all platforms. Her online posts have already amassed tens of millions of views. Anna’s passion for the organ is matched by her mission to support girls and women in music. She became the first female in the 560-year history of Magdalen College, Oxford to be awarded an Organ Scholarship; since her appointment as Pembroke’s youngest ever Director of Music in 2016, she has run regular workshops for young organists around the UK, hosted the Cambridge Organ Experience for Girls and held an annual 24-hour ‘Bachathon’ to raise money to support musicians in Zambia.
After making her TV presenting debut as host of BBC Young Musician, Anna subsequently presented and guested on televised Proms for the BBC from the Royal Albert Hall. As a radio broadcaster, she is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and independent stations and has appeared in many international television and radio programmes and podcasts. Her six-part series for BBC Radio 3, ‘A View From the Organ Loft’, was broadcast in 2024 followed by a three-part series, ‘The Royal Albert Hall of Fame’, for Classic FM in 2025.
A persuasive advocate for music education, Anna is determined to bring music to children of all backgrounds. Her commitment to equality and diversity is evident throughout her life and work, not least in the new music that she has commissioned and programmes in her recitals across Europe and North America. Gregoriana, an anthology of 12 new organ pieces by female composers, which she curated and edited for Stainer & Bell, was awarded Presto Music’s Publication of the Year in 2022. Her own compositions are published by Boosey & Hawkes.
Having spent some years being encouraged to “play like a man”, Anna is proud and humbled to see so many adopt her hashtag #playlikeagirl.
Current album
The Waiting Sky
Artists Anna LapwoodRelease Date: 11/08/2024
On November 8th 2024, Anna Lapwood released her new EP ‘The Waiting Sky’, along with the Pembroke College Girls’ Choir. She says:
“One of the things I love most about working with the Girl Choristers at Pembroke is that they are constantly surprising me with what we’re capable of, always encouraging me to keep pushingthem further. I remember when the choir first started, most of our repertoire was in 2 parts – very occasionally we would break into 3 parts, but those pieces were always seen as real challenges at the time. A couple of years later we had started singing music in 4 parts, and had settled into a nice routine of regular repertoire. One of the older girls then came to me and said she would really appreciate it if they could add a whole load of completely new music to our repertoire - music that stretched them further. I spent a couple of days diving into as much upper voices repertoire as I could, and tentatively started working with them on some more complex pieces, which they just ate up! Singing in 6-8 parts has become one of our favourite things; we stand in a circle, I sing with them instead of conducting, and we make music together. Initially I was worried the younger choristers would struggle to keep up, but I’ve found time and time again they have simply risen to the challenge.
The music on this recording traces this journey, ranging from Owain Park’s simple but beautiful ‘Cradle Lullaby’ through to Kerensa Briggs 7 part ‘Seek ye, first, the kingdom of God’. Nadezhda Averina’s arrangement of Rheinberger’s ‘Abendlied’ allows them to experience one of the great staples of the choral repertoire, while James McCarthy’s ‘Peaceful was the night’ provides an opportunity to delve into musical storytelling.
Winter Time was written by the girl choristers; we have a tradition where the last rehearsal of each term is spent composing a new piece as a group which we then sing to the parents. Winter Time was written a couple of years ago; whenever a chorister sang a solo it was because that was a bit they had written, and it was lovely to give those choristers the chance to record these solos for this EP.
There have been so many points over the past couple of years where the choristers and I have been chatting and one of them will say ‘can you imagine us doing this 4 years ago’?! I think this EP is all about capturing that sense of achievement, progression, and joy that comes from making music together as a group, growing together and constantly breaking through our own perceptions of what we can achieve.”
