Our accompanist, Fiona Brown MA (Cantab), FRCO, LRAM, PGCE was born in Haslemere, Surrey and educated at Christ’s Hospital School for Girls, Hertford; Trinity Hall, Cambridge (where she read music as Organ Scholar, and took organ lessons with Gillian Weir), and Homerton College Cambridge. Other organ teachers have included James Dalton and David Sanger.
Full-time teaching posts at Repton School and Cheltenham Ladies’ College have been followed by many years combining teaching the piano and organ at the Ladies’ College with various part-time class teaching posts, directorship of the music at St Peter’s, Winchcombe (where for 26 years she ran a choir of 40+ children and adults and played the organ for services), and concert / recital / accompanying engagements on both organ and piano.
Organ engagements enjoyed by Fiona have included recitals in Ely, Gloucester, Derby and Arundel Cathedrals; Tewkesbury Abbey; several Oxbridge college chapels (including Keble College in 2017); and various parish churches. Orchestral engagements have included: Concerto for organ, timpani and strings , Poulenc, in Monmouth Parish Church; Organ Symphony, Saint-Saens, in Cirencester Parish Church, Cheltenham Town Hall and Brecon Cathedral; 3 organ concertos by Handel, on in Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham; ‘Resurrection’ Symphony, Mahler, and Alpensymphonie, Strauss, in Tewkesbury Abbey. Organ accompanying has included: Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms; Durufle’s Requiem‘; Haydn’s The Creation; and Faure’s Requiem, (in all playing orchestral reductions); choral evensongs in Ely, Norwich, Bury St Edmunds, Derby, Wells and Salisbury Cathedrals; and two tours with choirs to Annecy and Megeve in France.