Home   What's On   Article

Subscribe Now

Anna Lapwood: ‘Now is probably the time for me to do mad and busy’




Just a few months after Anna Lapwood last spoke to the Cambridge Independent, it was announced that the superstar organist was to leave her post as director of music at Pembroke College, Cambridge, at the end of this academic year, to devote more time to her career as a prominent concert organist.

Anna Lapwood. Picture: Charlotte Ellis
Anna Lapwood. Picture: Charlotte Ellis

And her career as an organist certainly keeps her busy, for when we spoke, Anna had been taking part in an overnight rehearsal at the Royal Albert Hall, where she is a resident artist, the previous day.

She also has a new album, Firedove, set for release at the end of the month.

“I got home at 7.30am,” says Anna, speaking to the Cambridge Independent via a Zoom video call.

“I went to sleep for five hours, but I find when I wake up again my body clock is so confused that I feel a little bit dazed for a day.”

Firedove is the follow-up to Anna’s acclaimed 2023 album, Luna.

The lead track is Limina Luminis, commissioned for and first performed at the 2023 BBC Proms, composed for Anna by Italian composer, Olivia Belli.

Other tracks include a scherzo by Louis Vierne and Anna’s take on Robbie Williams’ hit song Angels, as well as renditions of Maurice Duruflé’s Prelude et Fugue, The Bells of Notre Dame – from Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame soundtrack – Bob Dylan’s Make You Feel My Love, and Time by Hans Zimmer.

“Eclectic I think is the word that people have been using to describe it,” says Anna, the first female musician to reach number one on the Classical Artist Album Chart in 2023 with Luna.

“It’s basically all the music I adore playing, from a whole range of different genres, and the organ is the thread which binds them together and makes them make sense alongside each other.

“So we’ve got Robbie Williams’ Angels, which is a song that my dad used to sing around the house, and we’ve got that next to the Duruflé Prelude et fugue sur le nom d’Alain, which is one of the greatest pieces written for the organ.

“And it’s seeing the organ as this thread that can bring people to the repertoire, from whichever side they happen to be coming from.”

Anna Lapwood at Nidaros Cathedral in Norway. Picture: Sondre Eriksen Hensema
Anna Lapwood at Nidaros Cathedral in Norway. Picture: Sondre Eriksen Hensema

As well as the new album, which was recorded through the night over the period of a week in the Nidaros Cathedral – a spectacular gothic masterpiece founded in the 11th century in Trondheim, Norway – Anna has quite a few other things on the horizon.

“The big one that’s just been announced is the BBC Proms; I’m doing an overnight Prom and actually Pembroke Chapel Choir are going to come and sing as part of that,” she reveals.

“We’re starting I think at 10 at night and we finish at 7 in the morning; I’ll be playing the organ and then there’s some other amazing artists as well. Then I’ve got a solo organ tour in December…

“So it’s busy at the moment, it’s certainly hectic, and I’m trying to keep an eye on all the things that I’m meant to be talking about and the things I can’t talk about yet. It’s a fun challenge trying to keep track of them all.

“There’s a lot of exciting stuff coming up over the next couple of years.”

Reflecting on her rise to fame, Anna says: “It’s totally surreal how things have grown in the last couple of years, and I’m still pinching myself on a daily basis.

“And sometimes it doesn’t really feel like it’s happening to you, it feels like a slightly out-of-body experience with all this stuff going on.

“But I feel so lucky and so privileged, and I just think, ‘Hooray that people are noticing that the organ’s a good instrument!’”

Anna Lapwood. Picture: Becca Wheeler
Anna Lapwood. Picture: Becca Wheeler

Understandably, Anna has mixed feelings about leaving her post at Pembroke – a position she has held since September 2016, when she became the youngest director of music at an Oxbridge college at the age of 21.

Her various achievements in the role include founding the Pembroke College Girls’ Choir in 2018 and conducting the Pembroke College Chapel Choir.

“I adore working in Cambridge, I adore working at Pembroke, I love my choirs – it’s been most of my adult life that I’ve spent there, and it’s been obviously a huge part of who I am,” she says.

“I’m going to miss it so much and my students have been very patient with me as I’ve cried my way through almost every service I’ve done since I told them.

“But I think it’s one of those things where I’ve been kind of splitting my life in half for a long time now, with organ and choirs, and there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

“Obviously the organ stuff is kind of exploding at the moment and I’m really, really excited about the next couple of years.

“It’s going to be mad and busy but I think now is probably the time for me to do mad and busy before I get too tired.”

Anna, who was recently announced as one of the 25 powerful and influential people in The Sunday Times’ Young Power List, certainly doesn’t rule out collaborating with the Pembroke College Girls’ Choir on future projects.

“Oh, absolutely and the new director of music, Luke, is lovely and brilliant and we’ve already been chatting about various ideas going forwards,” she notes.

“So I’m very much not saying goodbye to Pembroke, it’s a shift in the relationship as opposed to actually leaving forever.”

Anna has become known to millions through viral TikTok videos, high-profile collaborations, and sold-out live performances.

She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours List for her services to music.

A graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, where she was its first ever female organ scholar, Anna was also awarded an associateship of the Royal Academy of Music and the prestigious ‘Gamechanger’ award from the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2023.

Then in 2024, she made headlines when she gave Tom Cruise an impromptu organ lesson at a live orchestral screening of Top Gun: Maverick at the Royal Albert Hall.

The cover of Anna Lapwood’s 2025 album, 'Firedove'
The cover of Anna Lapwood’s 2025 album, 'Firedove'

Firedove is due to be released on 30 May. For more on Anna, go to annalapwood.co.uk.



This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies - Learn More