Monday Organ Recitals – Alex Woodrow (Leeds Minster)

Prelude and Fugue in C (BWV 547) – J. S. Bach

Aria – A. Carter

Cantabile – C. Franck

The Swan (from Carnival of the Animals) – C. Saint-Saens, arr. Rawsthorne

Final (from Symphonie I) – L. Vierne

Biography

Alexander Woodrow is the Organist & Director of Music at Leeds Minster, appointed in 2020. He is Director of Music of 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, an adult chamber choir, in three choral services each week, as well as running the Leeds Minster Children’s Choir in partnership with St Peter’s C of E Primary School. He 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 in 2022 for the live BBC1 Easter Day broadcast. The Minster Choir and St Peter’s Singers of Leeds released in May 2025 a CD of Sacred Choral Music by William Lloyd Webber, including the first commercial recording of his cantata ‘The Saviour’, recorded by Priory Records.

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. A commitment to teaching has also been a focus over the years, at Mowden Hall School, Bradford Grammar School, and at Solihull School, where Alex worked as the Head of Choral Music on the full-time teaching staff.

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. He is also active as an organ recitalist across the UK, and has played solo concerts at a great many churches and cathedrals including York Minster, St John’s and King’s Colleges, Cambridge, and at Westminster Abbey.