Lunchtime Concert: Richard Gowers

Chichester Cathedral's popular lunchtime concerts take place on Tuesdays at 1.10pm during term time in the spectacular setting of the Cathedral Nave. They are free and last approximately 50 minutes. You are welcome to come and go as you please. Coffee is available at no charge, and some visitors even bring a sandwich! There is a retiring collection.

Richard Gowers, organ

Programme

  • Leoš  Janáček (1854–1928) - Varhany Solo from Glagolitic Mass
     
  • J S Bach (1685–1750) - Six ‘Schübler’ Chorales, BWV 645 - 650
    • Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme
    • Wo soll ich fliehen hin
    • Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten
    • Meine Seele erhebt den Herren
    • Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ
    • Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter
  • György  Ligeti(1923–2006) - Continuum
     
  • Healey Willan (1880–1968) - Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue in E-flat, Op. 149

     

Richard Gowers is a London-based organist, pianist and conductor. He gained recognition as an organist by becoming a prize-winning Fellow of the Royal College of Organists aged 17 and winning first prize at the 2013 Northern Ireland International Organ Competition. ​His studies have included a year spent at the Mendelssohn Conservatoire in Leipzig where he studied organ and piano. From 2014 to 2017 he was organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, graduating with a starred first class degree in Music. He currently holds a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studies Piano Accompaniment with Michael Dussek and Joseph Middleton and Orchestral Conducting with Sian Edwards and Dominic Grier and has won several prizes for song accompaniment and chamber music.

Alongside a busy freelance schedule, he serves as Organist of the Old Royal Naval College, where he is Professor of Organ at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, and supervises Music students at Cambridge University.

​As a concert organist he is known for his virtuosic programmes, wide repertoire and humorous spoken introductions. As well as performing regularly in major UK venues, he has given recitals around the globe. In the last few years these have included a Bach series at Brisbane City Hall in Australia for the 2015 Brisbane Baroque Festival, three solo tours of the United States, festivals in Toulouse, North Germany and Iceland, Dresden Cathedral and the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, Germany. In March 2018 he gave the premiere of Nico Muhly’s cycle for organ, The Lenten Gospels. His debut CD, Messiaen’s La Nativité du Seigneur was released in September 2018 on the King’s College Label. The disc was chosen as ‘record of the month’ by MusicWeb International, and was a Gramphone Editor’s Choice.