17/09/2026
LUNCHTIME ORGAN MUSIC
ALEXANDER WOODROW (Organist and Director of Music)
Friday 18th September, 1.00pm - 1.45pm
Admission free, with retiring collection. All welcome.
Sonata III in C minor | F. A. Guilmant
Sonata II | P. Hindemith
Introduction & Passacaglia | W. G. Alcock
Alexander Woodrow is the Organist & Director of Music at Leeds Minster, appointed in 2020, and leads a busy professional life as a choral director, church musician, organ recitalist and teacher. He is Director of Music for two chamber choirs (St Peter’s Singers of Leeds, and the Huddersfield Singers), and Accompanist to the Yorkshire Philharmonic Choir.
At Leeds Minster, he is responsible for the leadership of a vibrant Music Department, rehearsing and directing the Choir of Leeds Minster, a skilled adult chamber choir, in three choral services each week, as well as founding the Leeds Minster Children’s Choir in partnership with St Peter’s C of E Primary School. He also curates the Organ Recital series at Leeds Minster, featuring the church’s famous Harrison & Harrison organ in concert each week. He directed the Choir of Leeds Minster for the live BBC1 Easter Day broadcast in 2022. More recently, he directed the Leeds Minster Choir and St Peter’s Singers of Leeds in a recording of Sacred Choral and Organ Music by William Lloyd Webber, including the first commercial recording of Lloyd Webber’s cantata ‘The Saviour’, recorded by Priory Records. On this disc, Alex also appeared as solo organist in the set of Six Interludes on Passion Hymns by Lloyd Webber.
Alex’s musical career has encompassed positions at Guildford Cathedral, St Albans Cathedral, and Hexham Abbey, and between 2012 and 2016 he served as the youngest cathedral organist in the country, working as the Organist & Director of Music at Bradford Cathedral.
Alex read Music as Organ Scholar at Magdalene College, Cambridge, studying with Anne Page. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists at the age of 19, winning first prizes in all categories, including the Limpus Prize. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College London, and a recipient of the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
Alex has regularly broadcast on BBC Radio and Television with the Choir of Bradford Cathedral, Solihull School Chapel Choir and the Choir of Leeds Minster. He has been Organist to five programmes of BBC Songs of Praise. Alex is a popular organ recitalist across the UK, and has played solo concerts at York Minster, St John’s and King’s Colleges, Cambridge, and at Westminster Abbey. 2026 recitals include Beverley and Halifax Minsters, St Chad’s Church, Shrewsbury, St Alphege, Solihull, and Rochdale Town Hall, while 2027 includes a visit Dortmund, twinned with Leeds, to perform at the Reinoldikirche.
