Mynyddbach Chapel

26^th October 2022, 7.30pm

Organ Recital by

PAUL HALE

Postlude on ‘Now thank we all of God’

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Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)

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Fantasia in G

J. S. Bach

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Prelude on ‘Rhosymedre’

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

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Pièce Héroïque

César Franck (1822-1890)

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A Concert Suite (composed for Paul Hale, 2022)

David Machell (Born 1949)

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i. Hallelujah  ii. Tango  iii. Aria  iv. March

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Solemn Melody

Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941)

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Variations on ‘Amazing grace’

Denis Bèdard (born 1950)

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Tune in E

George Thalben-Ball (1896-1987)

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Knightsbridge March

Eric Coates (1886-1957)

About the Player

Paul Hale was Cathedral Organist & Rector Chori at Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire for twenty-seven years, having previously been Assistant Organist of Rochester Cathedral, Assistant Director of Music at Tonbridge School, Organ Scholar of New College, Oxford and a music scholar at Solihull School, where his lifelong passion for the organ was ignited.  He was appointed Cathedral Organist Emeritus on his retirement from Southwell in 2016.  On 9 June 2017, in a ceremony at Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred on Paul the Thomas Cranmer Award in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to church music in Southwell and beyond”.

Paul was Conductor of the Nottingham Bach Choir for 29 years, has been a Diploma Examiner for the Royal College of Organists and Secretary of the Diocesan Organ Advisers Conference. He has been Chairman of the RSCM Southwell & Nottinghamshire Area, President of the Nottingham & District Society of Organists, and a trustee of the RCO and of the Nottingham Albert Hall Binns Trust.  Paul is currently President of the Organ Club. He holds the FRCO and ARCM organ-playing diplomas and in recent years was awarded the FRSA, FGCM and FRSCM, the latter two “for distinguished service to church music”.  Organ Adviser to the dioceses of Southwell and Lincoln, Paul is in national demand as an independent organ consultant, interesting recent projects including new organs for Merton College Oxford, Manchester Cathedral, Newcastle R.C. Cathedral and Maidenhead parish church, with restoration or rebuilding projects at Selby Abbey, Birmingham, Salisbury, Truro and Ripon Cathedrals, Rochdale Town Hall, the Bute Hall (Glasgow), Melton Mowbray, King’s Lynn, Bridlington Priory and Wolverhampton parish churches (among many), schools such as Repton, Solihull and Radley, and Manchester, Cambridge and Sussex Universities.

Paul gives organ concerts and lectures all over the world, a particular honour being invited to give the Royal College of Organists Diploma Presentation Recital, and to perform at St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey a couple of years ago. He is well known for his writings on the organ (he was a consultant and author for the New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians) and for his reviews and regular column in the popular journal Organists’ Review, of which he was Editor from 1992 to 2005 and is now Honorary Consulting Editor. Paul enjoys teaching the organ; his pupils and previous organ scholars are found in many cathedrals and great churches. He is really looking forward to putting the unusual and splendid hybrid organ here through its paces tonight.