| Biography | GERARD BROOKS is a concert organist and teacher of wide experience. He studied music as Organ Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford and then won the Stephen Arlen Memorial Award which enabled him to study with Daniel Roth in France where he was also active as an accompanist and tutor. He also studied with John Webster, Susi Jeans, Nicolas Kynaston. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and was the first recipient of the Forsyth-Grant/Hurford Travelling Scholarship awarded by the RCO.
In April 2008, he took up the post of Director of Music at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster. Previous to this, he was for twenty years Associate Director of Music at the world-famous church of All Souls, Langham Place in London, where he was in charge of the choir and regularly conducted instrumental ensembles; he is the composer or arranger of many religious works for choir and orchestra.
Gerard is a Tutor for the St. Giles International Organ School and Latymer Upper School, professor of organ and improvisation at the Royal Academy of Music and Director of the London Organ Improvisation Course. He has become particularly associated with French repertoire and has contributed many articles to musical journals as well as writing the chapter on French and Belgian organ music for the Cambridge Companion to the Organ. His acclaimed recordings on the Priory label have all been broadcast on national radio and he has recorded the complete works of Eugène Gigout. The first volume of the series was voted an Editor's Choice in the May 2002 edition of Gramophone magazine.
He has taught and played on the Edinburgh Organ Academy and the RSCM London organ week, as well as running the London Organ Improvisation Course. Concerts in recent years have taken him to England, Scotland, France, Germany and Yale University in the USA.
Gerard has also had close association with schools: for five years he taught class music in a state secondary school, and it was here that he began to write and perform musicals with the children he taught. 'Nativity News' is published by Boosey & Hawkes and has received many performances throughout the country. His most recent schools work 'David vs. Goliath' has also been performed several times. |