Leeds Organists' Association

Dear members,
 
I hope you and your families are all keeping well. I expect there will be a lot of very tidy gardens, and for those with instruments at home a lot of new music being learned.

As head verger at Ripon Cathedral, I have been busier than ever. Not only am I security and maintenance, I am also facilitating online worship daily. It is worth noting that each online worship ends with an organ voluntary, some of which are being submitted by John Sayer played on his own instrument at home. Others have been submitted by Andrew Bryden from home, and Tom Coxhead who is still allowed to practice in the Cathedral. Even our Ethan (11 years old) has played a couple from home.

As we look to be in lockdown until at least the end of May, and our June meeting (The Leeds international Organ festival) is already cancelled, it is going to be sometime before we meet again in person. We have agreed that, if possible we run our Autumn meetings as planned and try to move the events we have missed into next year. This will be discussed at the next committee meeting which may well be online.

In the meantime please take a look at the website and the Facebook page. We have had a good response to our request for videos and still have a few more to upload. If you would like to contribute and don’t know how, please get in touch and we will help you with it.

I’m sure everyone is well-connected and have family around them, but if any of our members are totally isolated or in need of anything, even just a chat, please call or email me. If you need contact details for another member, I am happy to connect people individually during this time.