OBSERVER: Thomas Heywood
Classical organist Thomas Heywood celebrates the 200th anniversary of organ music in Australia with a concert of classical favourites performed on the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ on Sunday June 29 at 2pm. Admission is free, but bookings are essential.
Australia’s very first pipe organ had its first public performance on May 15, 1825 at St David’s Church in Hobart. The organ had been ordered in 1824 from a leading London organ builder and was shipped out to Tasmania the following year at great expense.
And so began the wide spread of Australia’s pipe organ heritage. Today, more than 2000 pipe organs can be found across the country in concert halls, town halls, public halls, theatres, universities, schools, cathedrals, churches and private residences. Worth more than one billion dollars in purely monetary terms and priceless in terms of replacement value, these monumental and, in many cases, irreplaceable instruments are the single largest and most valuable ‘objects’ owned by the authorities on behalf of their local communities.
“It’s thrilling to celebrate 200 years of organ music in Australia,” says Heywood. “For two centuries the music performed on these magnificent instruments – by generations of Australian organists – has been enjoyed by millions of Australians.”
Performing at Melbourne Town Hall on the largest and most expensive musical instrument in the southern hemisphere, Thomas Heywood shares his passion and mastery of the monumental pipe organ.
“I’ve enjoyed a life-long love affair with the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ since I first performed on it when I was 16 years old,” says Heywood.
“I am profoundly grateful for the wonderful times I had with the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ as a kid growing up in Melbourne in the 1980s. It really was the most amazing experience imaginable as a teenager – having such regular access to the power and grandeur of that magnificent instrument. It was very much the 1992 solo recording of the Melbourne Town Hall Organ – sponsored by the City of Melbourne for the City’s 150th birthday – that launched my international career.”.
The popular classical music program will include works from Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Bizet, Salomé, Chopin and Rossini and features Heywood’s new transcriptions of epic works by Brahms, Chopin, Bizet and Smetana.
An internationally renowned Australian organ virtuoso, Thomas Heywood enjoys an outstanding reputation. The American Organist wrote in 2019: ‘without argument one of the world’s best concert organists whose primary goal is to touch a wide public with music that stirs the soul as much as it stimulates the mind. His technique is impeccable and seemingly limitless. His command of musical style, particularly in large Romantic works, allows him to make them spring to life in the organ’s unique idiom.’
Event Details: Thomas Heywood – Concert Organ Spectacular
Date: Sunday June 29, 2pm – 4pm.
Venue: Melbourne Town Hall, 130 Swanston St, Melbourne
Tickets: Free admission, bookings essential.
Cheryl Threadgold
Pictured: Thomas Heywood