British-Australian organist and choral conductor Dr Joseph Nolan has been hailed by ABC Classic FM as ‘an extraordinary musician’, by BBC Radio 3 Record Review for ‘his miraculous playing', by Limelight Magazine as ‘a Colossus’ and by Gramophone for his ‘towering technique, vivid virtuosity and inspired interpretive insight’.

Twice nominated for Artist of the Year in 2016 and 2018, Limelight Magazine awarded Joseph its coveted Recording of the Month for his ninth disc for Signum Records from St Etienne du Mont, Paris, the church and organ of Maurice Duruflé. This is the first time in the history of the magazine that an organ disc has been awarded this distinction. Limelight Magazine has also recently awarded Joseph an unprecedented third Editor’s Choice for his tenth disc for Signum Records from St Bavo Haarlem.

Joseph studied at the Royal College of Music, London, winning the Canon Bark Prize for most promising organ student, and was awarded First Class Honours for his final recital at the Temple Church, London. Scholarships from the Countess of Munster Trust, Hattori Foundation and the Royal Philharmonic Society supported his advanced studies with legendary organists Marie-Claire Alain in Paris and Dame Gillian Weir in London.

Appointed to Her Majesty’s Chapels Royal, St James’s Palace, in 2004, Joseph performed on numerous occasions at Buckingham Palace, most notably giving the opening concert of the refurbished Grand Ballroom organ to a distinguished audience.

Joseph has played in concerts across the globe and made his solo debut at Sydney Opera House in the 2017 Sydney Symphony Orchestra Season to great critical acclaim. July 2019 will see Joseph return to Sydney Opera House, making another debut, as soloist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under their chief conductor, David Robertson. Joseph has also performed as a concerto soloist with the Malaysian Symphony Orchestra at Petronas Concert Hall, Kuala Lumpur, and with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra at Perth Concert Hall.

Joseph’s interpretations of the complete works of Charles-Marie Widor for Signum Records — winner of Gramophone’s 2017 ‘Label of the Year’ award — have firmly cemented his international reputation, with both Gramophone and The Australian describing the discs as ‘utterly authoritative’, Music Web International as ‘The Widor cycle of the decade’, BBC Music Magazine as ‘swashbuckling’, and Limelight Magazine as ‘Monumental’.

The Nolan/Signum Widor cycle features the finest Cavaillé-Coll organs in France, including those of La Madeleine in Paris, St Sernin in Toulouse and St François de Sales, Lyon. The discs have been awarded multiple five-star reviews and Editor’s Choice awards in BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone and Limelight Magazine. They have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and ABC Classic FM amongst many others. Joseph’s career has also been the subject of substantial interviews on Radio National (Australia) and in Gramophone, Choir and Organ, The Organ and The Australian.

Very notably, Gramophone magazine awarded the final disc in the Widor cycle a Critic’s Choice for 2017, and in May 2019 awarded Joseph's complete Widor cycle benchmark status as ‘the current yardstick for all Widor recordings’.

Gramophone recently hailed Joseph’s tenth disc from St Bavo Haarlem for Signum as a ‘wonderful accomplishment’, with the recording immediately entering the classical charts, a unique achievement for a disc of organ music. BBC Radio 3’s Record Review programme hailed Joseph’s playing on the disc as ‘miraculous and extraordinary’ and Musicweb International named the disk a Recording of the Year 2018, declaring it as ‘possibly the organ disc of the decade’.

Joseph was invited to take up the position of Organist and Master of Music at St George’s Cathedral, Perth, Western Australia in 2008. Under his leadership, the Cathedral music programme has been described as ‘elite’ and ‘world class’ in The Australian and The West Australian newspapers. The Cathedral choirs have regularly performed for ABC Classic FM whilst the Cathedral Consort has performed with the Hilliard Ensemble, the Academy of Ancient Music and The King's Singers.

In April 2019, Joseph conducted the West Australian Symphony Orchestra with the St George’s Cathedral Consort in a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. The performance was broadcast live on ABC Classic FM, garnering rave reviews in The Australian and The West Australian newspapers. Limelight Magazine hailed the performance as ‘one of the most technically and musically satisfying performances ever heard’.

Joseph has also collaborated in concert with some of the world’s finest trumpeters, including Alison Balsom, Crispian Steele-Perkins and David Elton, Principal Trumpet of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Joseph was made a Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government for services to French music in 2016 and became an Honorary Fellow of the University of Western Australia in 2013. The University awarded Joseph its prestigious higher doctorate, the Doctor of Letters, in 2018.

Joseph will be returning to the famous church of La Madeleine, Paris, to record the complete organ works of Charles-Valentin Alkan for Signum Records in June 2020

David Goode is Organist at Eton College, combining this post with a flourishing performing career.
A music scholar at Eton, and then organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, he studied organ with David Sanger and in Amsterdam with Jacques van Oortmerssen. From 1996- 2001 he was Sub-Organist at Christ Church, Oxford; following prizes at the 1997 St. Alban’s Competition, and the 1998 Calgary Competition, he concentrated on a freelance career between 2001 and 2003. In 2003 he moved for 2 years to Los Angeles as Organist-in- Residence at First Congregational Church, home to the world’s largest church organ.
In 1999 he made the first of numerous appearances at the Proms, and in 2002 he made his recital debuts at the RFH and at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, subsequently playing all over Europe, the US, Australia and the Far East. He also has an established partnership with the trumpeter Alison Balsom: in March 2014 they played for the reopening concert of the Royal Festival Hall organ. He played at the AGO National Convention in June 2016 Of his Bach for Signum in 2013 The Times said: ‘One of Britain’s finest organists puts the 1714 organ in Freiberg Cathedral through its paces .... An exemplary introduction’. 7 volumes of a complete survey of Reger’s organ music have now also appeared, to warm reviews. He has forged a strong relationship over the years on Radio 3 with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Singers, and has played numerous contemporary works, including Francis Pott’s Christus (‘a stupendous achievement’ The Times), and Peter Maxwell Davies’ Solstice of Light.
He has also developed a profile as a composer: a set of anthems has been published, together with recordings by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge; and his Blitz Requiem was performed in September 2013 by the Bach Choir at St Paul’s Cathedral, and broadcast on Classic FM. He was also a juror at the 2017 St. Alban’s International Competition.

Dr Naji Hakim studied with J. Langlais and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris where he was awarded seven first prizes. He is a licentiate teacher in organ from the Trinity College of Music in London and won ten first prizes at international organ and composition competitions. In 1991 he was awarded the Prix André Caplet from the Académie des Beaux-Arts. At first organist of the Basilique du Sacré- Coeur, Paris from 1985 until 1993, he then became organist of l’église de la Trinité, in succession to Olivier Messiaen, from 1993 until 2008. He is professor of musical analysis at the Conservatoire National de Région de Boulogne-Billancourt, and visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

Robert Quinney is Organist of New College, Oxford. In addition to the daily direction of New College’s world-famous choir, his work comprises teaching, lecturing, and examining, as a Tutorial Fellow of the college and an Associate Professor at the University Faculty of Music. He has conducted New College Choir in concert at home and abroad – notably in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and with The English Concert in New York City and at Wigmore and Cadogan Halls in London. Under his direction the choir continues to make recordings for its own label, Novum; the first, a disc of Symphony Anthems by John Blow, was shortlisted for a 2017 Gramophone Award: ‘an assured synthesis of elegant musicality, judicious ear for contrapuntal detail and informed scholarship’.
He maintains a parallel career as a solo organist, and is a prolific recording artist: his discs of organ music by J.S. Bach, Elgar, Dupré, Wagner and Brahms (and several CDs with Westminster Abbey Choir and The Sixteen) have been widely acclaimed. In February 2017 he made his debut at the Royal Festival Hall with an all-Bach recital, and later in the same year appeared for the first time at the BBC Proms, playing organ music by Bach and Mendelssohn.
Robert Quinney read music at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was Organ Scholar. After four years as Assistant Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral, he became Sub-Organist of Westminster Abbey in 2004. While at the Abbey he performed on concert tours to the United States, Australia and Russia, at several televised services including the Marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. In April 2013 he moved to Peterborough Cathedral, where he was Director of Music for 16 months. Between 2009 and 2014 he was Director of Oundle for Organists, whose residential courses continue to attract young organists from all over the world.

Jeremy Filsell enjoys a concert career as one of only a few virtuoso performers on both the Piano and the Organ. He has performed as a solo pianist in Russia, the USA and throughout the UK and has appeared regularly at St John’s Smith Square and the Conway and Wigmore Halls in London. His Concerto repertoire encompasses Mozart and Beethoven through to Rachmaninov (2nd and 3rd Concertos), Shostakovich and John Ireland and in recent years, he has recorded the solo piano music of Carl Johann Eschmann, Eugene Goossens and the two Sonatas of Liszt’s pupil Julius Reubke. In the piano music of Herbert Howells and Bernard Stevens, Classic CD magazine commented that “he does not attract for his virtuosity but for his ability to make the music unfold with irresistible logic and clarity: music-making of the highest calibre.” He is pianist with the London-based Burghersh Piano Trio and performs regularly with Oliver Lewis (Violin), with whom he has recorded discs of Elgar, Ireland, Ferguson and Goossens for Guild. With Michael Bundy (Baritone), two discs of Mélodies by Widor, Vierne and Dupré are due for release by Naxos.
Jeremy Filsell has recorded for BBC Radio 3, USA and Scandinavian radio networks in solo and concerto roles as both a pianist and organist and, as an organist specifically, has a discography comprising over 20 solo recordings for labels Signum, Guild, Gamut, Herald and ASV. Gramophone magazine, writing on the series of 12 CDs comprising the premiere recordings of Marcel Dupré’s complete organ works for Guild in 2000, praised his performance as “one of the greatest achievements in organ recording…Filsell’s astonishing interpretative and technical skills make for compulsive listening … truly distinguished, compelling and unquestionably authoritative performances; Filsell has phenomenal technique.” In 2005, Signum released a 3-disc set on the famous 1890 Cavaillé-Coll organ in St. Ouen Rouen of the complete organ symphonies of Louis Vierne. These were BBC Radio 3’s Disc of the Week in September of that year.
Jeremy studied as a music scholar at Oxford University, then as a post-graduate pianist under David Parkhouse and Hilary McNamara at the Royal College of Music before completing a PhD at Birmingham Conservatoire researching aesthetic and interpretative issues in the organ music of Marcel Dupré. Over the course of his career, he has taught piano, organ and academic studies at Cranleigh, Eton and the London Oratory School, given masterclasses at universities and summer schools in both the UK and USA, served twice on international competition juries and, until recently, held lectureships at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and London’s Royal Academy of Music. He lives currently in the USA and is Principal Organist at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C., one of the largest churches in the world and the flagship Catholic Church in North America.

James Vivian has been part of the music department at the Temple Church since 1997 and was appointed Director of Music & Organist of the Temple Church in 2006. Previously, he worked closely with the then Director of Music, Stephen Layton, as Sub-Organist and subsequently as Organist. At the Temple Church, James presides over the famous four-manual Harrison & Harrison organ and directs the professional choir of men and boys about whom the Daily Telegraph commented, ‘The Temple Church Choir is a formidable force, finely honed and blended’. The choir’s latest CD was released on the Signum label in 2010. As an organist, he is known as much for his outstanding interpretation of the solo repertoire as for his colourful and inventive accompanying; he is one of England’s most sought-after young organists. James Vivian was educated at King’s College, Cambridge where, for four years, he worked closely with its world-famous choir as organ scholar. Before Cambridge, he was acting-Assistant Organist. of Lincoln Cathedral. He was a prize-winner in the Fellowship examination of the Royal College of Organists, and was awarded a scholarship to study the French organ repertoire with Marie-Louise Langlais in Paris. James has appeared in many Festivals (including the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh, The Three Choirs Festival, the Lincoln Festival in New York City, and Festivals in Bermuda, Germany and Italy), and has played recitals and concerts throughout the world (including Japan, Brazil, South Africa, USA, and Europe). He has broadcast on many national radio stations as a soloist, and has recorded with labels such as Decca, Priory, Signum, Sony BMG, EMI and Hyperion. James has also been an examiner for the The Royal College of Organists.
James was Artistic Adviser to the hugely successful year-long 2008 Temple Festival; highlights included conducting a new and fully-staged production of Dido & Aeneas in London which was highly praised: ‘…an uncommonly satisfying, very beautiful account of Dido and Aeneas’ (Opera). He is co-founder of two professional instrumental ensembles, The Temple Players and Temple Brass, as well as the Temple Singers, with whom he presents concerts at the Temple Church.