Practice Organ for St Edward’s College Liverpool

We are delighted to support St Edward’s College in Liverpool with a permanent loan instrument for the College Hall. The digital organ (Viscount Cadet 31) will allow their young organ students access to an instrument in school to practise and perform on.

The organ will be used in assemblies, liturgies and concerts in the College as well as being used for practice and teaching. The school now hope to encourage more pupils and students to consider learning the organ.

Installing the practice organ in the school

The instrument was delivered and installed by Anthony Bogdan Organs Ltd, our accredited dealer in the North of England. Anthony Bogdan coordinated the installation with the school and regulated the organ on site.

Both Viscount and St Edward’s college would also like to thank to Dr Christopher McElroy, Director of Music at the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, for helping to arrange all of this.

Supporting and inspiring young organists for the future

At Viscount Organs we believe it is important to support efforts that encourage and inspire younger people to play the organ. When Dr McElroy approached us about providing an instrument for St Edward’s College we were interested to find out more about how the organ would be used.

Unfortunately we can’t give away a free instrument to everyone so it was important to us that it would be of good use to the school and the pupils. It was therefore great to receive the testimonial below from Dr McElroy outlining the main purposes of the loan organ. We definitely look forward to seeing many of the students getting to practice on our digital organ.

We are delighted to receive this new Viscount organ on a long term loan at St Edwards College, Liverpool. St Edward’s College is the senior choir school (alongside Runnymede St Edward’s which educates the junior choristers) to Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.

Here at the Cathedral we encourage our choristers to see themselves as musicians first and foremost, and singers second! Thus each chorister is encouraged to play one or more instruments and to engage with music theory on a weekly basis. Several of our more accomplished pianists have in recent years shown a desire to play the organ, inspired no doubt by the experience of singing on a daily basis with the famous 1967 Walker organ in the Metropolitan Cathedral.

We are delighted to now have four students engaged in weekly lessons, with a waiting list of those who would be keen to start. This new instrument, very kindly donated by Viscount, will serve three main purposes:

1. It will allow students to practice regularly during school hours. Organists will know that cold, dark churches and cathedrals don’t make the most conducive place to practice!
2. It will allow students to have regular weekly lessons in school during the day. Currently organ lessons are taking place at the end of the chorister day (around 7pm). Being able to have lessons during the school day means students will be more alert and we are able to double or even triple the capacity of the number of students we can teach!
3. It will allow students to perform on a regular basis in school assemblies and Masses. The religious life of St Edward’s College is taken very seriously with regular religious events and Masses. The new Viscount instrument will allow our students to gain valuable experience performing repertoire and accompanying hymns and choral music on a regular basis.

We are very much looking forward to acquainting our students with the new Viscount organ, and look forward to sharing their progress with you in years to come.’

Dr Christopher McElroy MMus PhD Director of Music
Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

You can find out more how we support different initiatives and inspiring organists on our blog. If you are representing a school and considering a practice organ then please get in contact with us if you have any questions.