Paul Hale – organ

The Programme

Paul Hale – organ

Fanfare

Variations on ‘O filii et filiæ’

Clair de Lune

Pièce Héroïque

Prelude on ‘The Londonderry Air’

Toccata in B minor

The Artist

Paul Hale was organ scholar of New College, Oxford, gaining an MA in Music. A Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and an Associate of the Royal College of Music, Paul was Cathedral Organist at Southwell Minster for twenty-seven years, directing his choirs in eight choral services weekly, with many broadcasts, recordings and tours. On becoming Rector Chori Emeritus in 2016, he was presented by the Archbishop of Canterbury with the Lambeth Thomas Cranmer Award for his “immense and devoted service”, having previously been awarded honorary Fellowships by the Guild of Church Musicians and the Royal School of Church Music.

Paul Hale was Conductor of the Nottingham Bach Choir (of which he is now President) for twenty-nine years and has been a diploma examiner and Trustee of the Royal College of Organists, President of The Organ Club, of the Cathedral Organists’ Association and of the Nottingham & District Society of Organists, as well as Chairman of the Diocesan Organ Advisers’ Conference and of the RSCM East Midlands.

Paul has long been diocesan organ adviser for both Southwell and Lincoln, and is known as one of the United Kingdom’s leading organ consultants (Gloucester Cathedral and Great St Bartholomew’s Priory being two of his many current projects); he still gives lectures, writes for Organists’ Review and Choir & Organ, accompanies song recitals and plays organ concerts. A critic wrote of his Karg-Elert Homage to Handel recording that it “…demonstrates Hale’s superb technical skills and his great musicianship” and a review of a recent organ concert included “His mastery of colour is an inspiration, and his orchestration of the Hindemith was just wonderful – never have I been so aware of the partnership between composer and performer!”.