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Anna Lapwood

Using the hashtag #playlikeagirl on social media, Anna Lapwood is one of the few women active in the highest ranks of the world's organists. She is also active as a choral conductor, having served as Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge University. In 2025, she became the first official organist of the Royal Albert Hall in London. That year, she released the album Firedove on the Sony Classical label.Lapwood was born on July 28, 1995, in England's Hertfordshire region. A musical prodigy, she could play 20 instruments by the time she was 11 years old, including the harp, but she did not take up the organ until she was 16. She studied piano, violin, viola, and composition at the Junior Royal Academy of Music and played the harp in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, but she made such rapid progress on the organ that, at Oxford University's Magdalen College, she was able to finance her studies as an Organ Scholar, becoming the first woman to hold the position in the 560-year history of the school. After graduating with first-class honors, Lapwood was hired by Pembroke College, Cambridge, at the age of 21, becoming among the youngest directors of music at any college of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. She conducted the college's Chapel Choir, and in 2018, she established the Pembroke College Girls' Choir, with which she has toured, including in Zambia (where she has led choral workshops), and recorded. She also established the Cambridge Organ Experience for Girls at Pembroke, as well as an annual Bach-a-thon concert series that raises money for the school's ensembles. Lapwood released her debut album, All Things Are Quite Silent, with the Chapel Choir of Pembroke College on the Signum Classics label in 2020.Within her busy schedule, Lapwood has often given solo recitals and toured Britain, the U.S., and continental Europe, appearing at such venues as the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Festival Hall (where she opened the annual televised BAFTA Awards on the organ), and St. Thomas Church in New York. She has also found time to host a weekly classical music radio program on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and to also appear on BBC Radio 3. Lapwood has several organ credits, and as an organist, she was signed to the Signum Classics label and released her debut organ album, Images, in 2021. In September of that year, Lapwood performed Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78 ("Organ Symphony"), with the Hallé Orchestra at the BBC Proms and later with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. She performed at the Royal Albert Hall several times, including once with the electronica group Bonobo in 2022, and in 2025, she was named the hall's first official organist, resigning from her Pembroke post. Lapwood released several more albums on Signum Classics, including A Pembroke Christmas in 2022, and she moved to Sony Classical for the 2023 recital Luna. That was followed in 2025 by Firedove on Sony Classical.
© James Manheim /TiVo

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