For Thomas Trotter’s 850th recital as Birmingham City Organist, he is joined by the renowned theatre organist Simon Gledhill for popular duets and theatre organ solos.

Simon Gledhill’s first ‘live’ experience of the theatre pipe organ was seeing and hearing Ernest Broadbent play Britain’s most famous Mighty Wurlitzer at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool. In 1981, he won the UK’s Northern Young Theatre Organist of the Year competition. Nigel Ogden, presenter of the long-running BBC national radio programme The Organist Entertains, was in the audience and invited him to record for the programme on the BBC Theatre Organ. The resulting broadcasts generated a flurry of concert offers, and Simon has since given concerts at all the major UK theatre organ venues, as well as touring in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and North America. He has performed many times for the American Theatre Organ Society, and was named ATOS Organist of the year in 1997 and inducted into the Society’s Hall of Fame in 2015. Simon combines his concert and recording activities with work for the Cinema Organ Society and a full-time career in finance, based in London.

Birmingham City Organist since 1983, Thomas Trotter is one of the world’s top-ranking virtuoso organists and was awarded the 2020 Queen’s Medal for Music. His fortnightly lunchtime concerts last around an hour and showcase the organ’s sublime delicacy and awesome power – as well as his own technical wizardry – in some of the most inventive programmes you’re ever likely to hear.