The Global British Organ

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

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

The Conference Handbook giving details of all sessions and recital can be viewed from the button below or from the link beneath it.

https://bios.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/TGBO2026ConfBook.pdf

It can be read online, or it can be downloaded to computers, smart phones and other devices. This web version is interactive with hyperlinks that open the handful of internet locations mentioned in the text. In addition, there are internal links within the PDF file.

• Going to the Index on page 3 and clicking on any of the individual lines takes one directly to that page of the book.
• Clicking on any cross-references provided for recital programmes and for organ specifications will give direct access to those pages.
• A quick return to the page 3 Index is possible by clicking on the header of any page (the words “BIOS Conference 2026 – The Global British Organ”).

The programme shown in the handbook is also copied below.

Thursday 9^th April

12:00 Wadham College, Atrium of the Lee Shau Kee building

Registration opens.

14:00-15:45 Session I: Wadham College, Okinaga Room

Welcome by Dr William McVicker (Chair) and Dr Katie Pardee (Publications Officer and Conference Organiser)

• Dr Nicholas Thistlethwaite: ‘This pretentiously-named organisation’. Celebrating fifty years of BIOS. Also Michael Koenig: The Global | British | Organ: histories, networks and semantics.
• 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

16:00-17.45 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.

18:15 Dinner in Wadham College New Refectory

20:00 Keble College Chapel.

Organ recital: Katelyn Emerson

Friday 10^th April

09:00-10:45 Session III: Brasenose College, Amersi Lecture Theatre,

• John Maidment: Made in Britain: the British influence upon organs and organ building 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.

12:15-12:50 Sandwich lunch, Brasenose Antechapel

13:00 The Queen’s College Chapel

John Rowntree: The role of The Queen’s College organ in the English organ reform.

13:10-13:50 The Queen’s College Chapel

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

14:15-15:45 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. 

18:15 Wadham College, Antechapel and Cloisters

Drinks reception.

19:15 Wadham College Old Library

Conference dinner: Speaker, Alderman Dr Sir Andrew Parmley.
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: Colonial Whims: English influence in North American organ building.
• 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: Toiling upwards; the life of Robert Pennels
• Panel discussion: The British Organ: the next 50 years

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

14:30-16:30 Magdalen College Chapel

Although not part of the BIOS Conference, The Organ Club have invited conference attendees to join them for a Saturday afternoon visit to Magdalen College.  The four manual, forty-five stop Eule organ installed in 2023 will be described and played by Alexander Pott, former assistant organist.  His recent CD on the organ has been highly praised and will be on sale.  There will be an opportunity to play the organ, and members will be asked to contribute to a retiring collection.

Booking

All accommodation and dining options are now fully booked. Late booking for day attendance may still be possible using the appropriate sections of the booking form below but double check with the Meetings Officer.

It can be a semi-online process as the PDF document can be completed while the form is open on your computer. Text information can be typed on-screen, tick boxes completed with an ‘X’, and the completed form then saved to your computer. It can then be printed and posted, or emailed directly to meetings@bios.org.uk.

Alternatively, the form can be downloaded, printed and then completed by hand and posted.

Payments should preferably be bank transfers to:

• Account name: British Institute of Organ Studies
• Sort code: 52-30-44
• Account no: 05097169

It is essential to include a reference of your surname. If you are paying from a non-UK account, you will also need the IBAN reference of GB64NWBK52304405097169 and the BIC code of NWBKGB2L. Ensure bank charges are pre-paid.

Cheques (drawn on a UK bank account) can be posted to the meetings officer at the address at the end of this form. For all single bookings, please fill out a separate form for each person attending.

To access the booking form click the button below or enter the link below it into your browser.

https://bios.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/BookingGBO2026_g3.pdf

Thanks to the BIOS committee for all their work in putting this together: Richard Hobson (Meetings Officer), Melvin Hughes (Secretary), Adrian Mumford (Treasurer), Melanie Plumley (Membership Sec and Website manager),  William McVicker (Chair), and Katie Pardee (Publications Officer). Many thanks also to the BIOS special projects fund and to the Champniss Foundation for their financial help with the conference.

For everything other than bookings, the conference email address is 50@bios.org.uk