Page 92 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

MUSIC TEACHER

1 June 2022

Anna Lapwood interview: One of a kind

Harriet Clifford

Organist, conductor and broadcaster Anna Lapwood has already done much to bring organ
playing and choral singing into the 21st century and inspire a future generation of musicians.
Harriet Clifford meets her to discuss everything from her education and career to ‘thatched roof
TikTok’.

Anna Lapwood inside the organ at the Royal Albert Hall

Andy Paradise
I see the sparkly trousers (£3 from a charity shop) before I register who is wearing them. Then I clock
the box of cupcakes, clutched by a pair of hands that I almost recognise from organ-playing videos
on Twitter. As far as first impressions go, the initial five seconds of my encounter with organist,
conductor, and broadcaster Anna Lapwood are good. When it transpires that the cupcakes are for
us, I decide that Lapwood is my best interviewee yet. I take my dictaphone out of my bag and place
it on the table between us.

My opening gambit, carefully prepared to show that I've done my research, is that Lapwood and I
were both born in 1995 in Hertfordshire, ‘but that's where the similarities end’. Lapwood laughs – she