The Global British Organ

The British Institute of Organ Studies will hold its 50th anniversary conference in Oxford from 9^th-11^th April 2026.

The conference will be based at Wadham College, Oxford, a seventeenth-century foundation located in the heart of Oxford’s “dreaming spires”.

The draft programme, subject to change is:

Thursday 9^th April

12:00 Conference registration begins in Wadham College

14:00-15:30 Session I: Wadham College, the Okinaga Room

• The Rev Dr Nicholas Thistlethwaite: Opening remarks.
• Alex Shinn: The English Organ Impeded. The radical influence of the reformed Church of Zürich on organs during the Edwardian and Elizabethan Reformations.
• Randall Engle: Sound Theology.

Coffee/tea break

15.50-17.30 Session II: Wadham College Chapel

• David Force, lecture-recital: The ‘New College’ Consort Organ.
• Michael Bennett, lecture-recital: Performance Practice in the music of John Bull.

18:30-19:30 Dinner in Wadham College New Refectory

20:00 Keble College Chapel.

Organ recital: Katelyn Emerson

Friday 10^th April

09:00-10:30 Session III: Brasenose College

• John Maidment: Made in Australia
• Alan Eben: Towards a Scholarly Organ Culture in India: Lessons from history and the path ahead.
• Jonathan Hughes: Agency: The Importation of British Organs and Their Place in South African Colonial Society (1883-1924).

Coffee/tea break

11:00-12:15 Session IV: Brasenose College Chapel

• William McVicker, Christian Wilson, Alex Flood: An arranged marriage? The 2025 Orgues de Facto organ in Brasenose Chapel.
• Anthony Williams, Lecture-Recital: The British Influence in the Organ Music of Fela Sowande.

12:15-12:40 Sandwich lunch, Brasenose College Chapel

12.50 The Queen’s College Chapel

John Rowntree: The Role of The Queen’s College Organ on the English Organ Reform.

13:00-13:40 The Queen’s College Chapel

Organ Recital: Daniel Moult (open to the public, no charge)

14:00-15:30 Session V: Wadham College, Okinaga Room

• John Dixon: A Report from America.
• Owen Woods: Harrison organs in colonial and independent Nigeria.
• David Brown: Tropical Adaptations: Trinidad’s Surviving English Pipe Organs.

Coffee/tea break

16:00-17:30 Session VI: Wadham College, Okinaga Room

• Zsombor Tóth-Vajna: Fantasia Restored: Traces of the Stylus Phantasticus in English Restoration Organ Music.
• Mie Berg: The Victorian organ in Norway.
• Paul Tindall: John Hanson Sperling, church builder and organ enthusiast. New investigations, and a possible new source. 

18:30 Wadham College, Antechapel and Cloisters

Drinks reception

19:15: Wadham College Hall

Conference dinner: Sir Andrew Parmley – speaker
Dress code: jacket & tie

21:20 Wadham College Chapel

After-dinner organ recital: Margaret Phillips

Saturday 11^th April

09:00-11:00 Session VII: Wadham College, Okinaga Room

• Jonathan Ambrosino
• Andrew McCrea: The Organ Music Society and aspects of ‘Reform’ in 1930s London.
• David Knight: Attitudes to imported organs 1975 to 2025.

Coffee/tea break

11:30-13:00 Session VIII: Okinaga Room, Wadham College

We welcome members of the Organ Club who will be with us for this session, chaired by William McVicker.

• Bruce Buchanan
• Panel discussion: The Organ: Past, Present, Future.

Alan Thurlow : Nicholas Thistlethwaite : John Rowntree : John Brennan : Jonathan Ambrosino,
John Maidment : Jonathan Rennert : Michael Koenig : Katelyn Emerson

Thanks to the BIOS committee for all their work in putting this together
Many thanks also to the BIOS special projects fund and to the Champniss Foundation for their financial help with the conference.

The conference email address is 50@bios.org.uk