Anne Marsden Thomas

Events

  • Teaching Young Organists: Essential Skills
    808 Howell St
    July 6, 2022 @ 10:00 am
    When a young student arrives for their first organ lesson there is no way of predicting their musical future.  We cannot tell whether the student will become an international recitalist, a music teacher, a church organist, a leisure organist, or any combination of these.  The list of areas which ideally needs to be taught in order to support these different outcomes can seem both long and daunting:  technique, registration, interpretation, practice strategies, sight-reading, liturgical skills, and keyboard musicianship. This first workshop aims to offer advice on each of these aspects with helpful strategies based on the presenters’ wide experience and many years of teaching. 
  • Teaching Young Organists: How to Find Time for Everything
    808 Howell St
    July 7, 2022 @ 10:00 am
    Having established the areas to cover when teaching the young organist, this second workshop concentrates on time management and related strategies and resources.  The successful teacher will be systematic, promote independent learning, work collaboratively with the student, agree on realistic goals, choose appropriate pieces, and find time to include sight-reading and keyboard skills. Everything must contribute to creating the best environment for motivating students.   The presenters will show you that there really is time for everything.

Anne Marsden Thomas
About

Anne Marsden Thomas MBE is an organist, organ teacher and author or co-author of 23 books for organ students and church organists.  

Anne teaches organ at The Royal Academy of Music, both in the Junior and Senior departments.   Since 2006 she has taught the LRAM course there which trains those wishing to qualify as organ teachers.

Anne gives private organ lessons at St. Giles Cripplegate Church.   She has taught hundreds of students over the last 50 years, with many of these students continuing into the music profession.  She has wide experience of examining grade examinations and diplomas.

She has been Director of Music at St. Giles Cripplegate Church since 1982.    Although she no longer gives organ recitals, her concert and teaching work has taken her to the USA, Canada, Japan, Europe and all over the UK and she has made several commercial recordings. 

She has published many articles for organists and their teachers, including a long-running series ‘Anne Marsden Thomas’s Organ Lessons’ published in both Church Music Quarterly and The American Organist. 

Anne has received several honorary awards, including the FRSCM and ARAM.  In March 2017 she was the first woman to receive the RCO Medal.  She was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours 2015 for ‘services to organ music’.

Anne is Co-chair, with Ghislaine Reece-Trapp, of the Society of Women Organists www.societyofwomenorganists.co.uk which launched at the Royal Festival Hall in February 2019.