James Coupe

Chair

Having spent a working life as a mechanical engineer in the lifting equipment industry, and chain making in particular, in retirement James Coupe continues to work as a part-time consultant. He is a former President and now honorary life member of the Lifting Equipment Engineers Association. Having an organist as a father and singing in a church choir gave him a love for organ and choral music. A long-standing member of the Oldham, Rochdale and Thameside Organists’ Association, he was directly involved in the restoration of the 1913 JJ Binns organ in Rochdale town hall in 1979 and was at the time on the IAO council.

Michael Jones

Vice-Chair

In 2021 Michael Jones celebrates fifty years as a professional musician. He is also a historian, lecturer, and musicologist: he has catalogued the manuscripts of several Midlands-based composers and is the biographer and music executor of Edgar Bainton (1880 – 1956) – of ‘And I Saw a New Heaven’ fame.

Samuel Hudson

Honorary President

Samuel Hudson took up the post of Director of Music at Worcester Cathedral in September 2019, where he also conducts the Worcester Festival Choral Society, and is the Artistic Director of the Worcester Three Choirs Festival, next taking place in summer 2020. Samuel’s move to Worcester follows eight years as Organist & Director of Music at Blackburn Cathedral, during which time Samuel directed several radio and television broadcasts, led several tours with the Cathedral Choir and Cathedral Girls’ Choir, recorded a CD of music for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, and conducted the music at the Office of the Royal Maundy, held at the Cathedral in the presence of HM The Queen in April 2014. (Photograph by Michael Whitefoot)

Ian Giddons

Secretary

Ian retired from HarrisonParrott, a leading international classical music agency, in 2021 following 24 years as CFO. By profession a chartered accountant, before joining HP Ian worked for English National Opera as Head of Finance from shortly after qualifying. His long-standing interest in and passion for pipe organs started in his mid-teens at his local parish church in Leigh-on-Sea, then just a one-manual instrument with pull-down pedals. Resuming organ playing after a gap of some 20 years, Ian took up the position of organist at Christ Church, Streatham, London (an unaltered three-manual Hill organ of 36 stops from 1886 and now with a Historic Organ Certificate Grade 1) in 2015-2022. Now relocated to Malvern Ian continues as a keen amateur organist and has resumed organ studies in Worcester.

Gus Orchard

Treasurer

Gus started playing the organ while at school many years ago. He became a chartered accountant working in London, Paris and the USA but all the while keeping up an active interest as an organist and singer. While in Paris, he joined the choir at Notre Dame and also ran a choir at St Denis du St Sacrement where his major achievement was to get the choir to sing English Christmas carols, albeit with a French twang. Back in the UK, he worked as finance director of a number of start-up companies and finally retired from the business world 3 years ago. Since then, he has obtained his ARCO and is still mulling over whether to pursue the FRCO whilst trying in vain to reduce his golf handicap. He plays the organ on a regular basis at Holy Redeemer RC Church in Pershore.

Marion Tunwell

Committee Member

Marion Tunwell studied piano from an early age, later ‘cello, and began practising the organ in her mid-teens. After a BSc in chemistry, she moved to Worcestershire on marriage. She began work for Worcester Diocesan Board of Finance in 1994, where her role has included learning about charity accounting. Marion is now senior Finance Administrator. Since 1986, she has been an organist at Broadway United Reformed Church. At an organists’ course at Addington Palace in 1993, she was inspired by Anne Marsden-Thomas: she then worked with Trevor Tipple for about five years, achieving Grade VIII in 2004. She achieved her ARCO diploma in 2021.

James Bradley

Committee Member

James Bradley is Director of Music at St Mary’s church, Old Swinford. He was previously the Director of Music at Kidderminster Parish Church for seven years and he served on the Worcestershire Area Committee of the Royal School of Church Music for eight years. He was one of the founding directors of The Kidderminster Festival Orchestra (now The Sinfonia Stellaris), and is still its official audition accompanist. He holds an MEng (Hons) (Computing) from Imperial College London and he gained an MA (Mus) (Open) in 2020 with Distinction.

Paul Trepte

Committee Member

Paul Trepte studied organ with Donald Hunt and Nicholas Danby, and composition with Herbert Howells. After an organ scholarship at New College, Oxford his professional career began in 1979 when he was appointed Assistant Organist at Worcester Cathedral.

Paul’s next moves were to St Mary’s, Warwick and then to St Edmundsbury Cathedral. In September 1990, he succeeded Dr Arthur Wills as Organist and Director of Music at Ely Cathedral. His appearances on CD include solo organ discs and choral collections.

As organ recitalist he has performed throughout the UK and in many European cathedrals and churches, as well as in Russia and The USA.  He holds Honorary Fellowships from both the Guild of Church Musicians and The Royal School of Church Music. In 2019 he was delighted to accept an invitation from Cambridge Organists Association to become their Patron in succession to Sir Stephen Cleobury.

Paul retired from his principal post at Ely Cathedral on Easter Day, 2019. He now lives in Worcester and spends his time performing, examining and composing. Much of his choral music is published, and in October 2020 he won the RCO composition competition for his Sacred Song, “Who alone is good” which has now been published by RSCM and professionally recorded on video in St Martin’s Church, Worcester.

Dr James (Jim) Berrow

Committee Member

Starting his working life as an apprentice organ builder at Nicholson & Co Ltd just before they left their Worcester premises, he somehow then became an executive producer for a major UK broadcaster, producing music, arts and religious programmes for ITV, Channel 4, US PBS, Polyphon/WDR Cologne and the Arts Council. He has been a lay assessor for the RIBA and AABC, an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Birmingham, and a director or trustee of many cultural and heritage organisations including the CBSO. As an independent researcher, he is active in musicological studies, architectural history, the conservation of historic pipe organs, and his latest publication ‘The making of an English organ builder – John Nicholson’ was published by the British Institute of Organ Builders (BIOS) in 2022 and is now in its second edition. He was a founder member of BIOS and its third honorary secretary. He was actively involved in promoting the restoration of the organ at St Swithun’s church in Worcester in 2009/10.

Michael Bacon

Committee Member

Michael has recently retired from the BBC where he was a Sound Engineer for Radio 3 in London. He worked on everything from huge orchestras at The Proms to unusual venues in the City of London and specialised in Chamber, Early Music and the occasional organ concert. His organ teachers were Thomas Trotter and Anne Marsden Thomas, and he was lucky enough to play to give a couple of recitals in Westminster Abbey and Cathedral as well as less exalted venues. Leaving the 3 manual Walker in The Church of King Charles the Martyr which he had played and nurtured for 35 years was a wrench but he and his wife Fi (also ex BBC and a singer and lapsed organist) are looking forward to more music making in Malvern.

John Swindells

Committee Member

Since October 2019, John Swindells has been Organist and Director of Music at St Martin’s Church London Road, Worcester. Here he directs the church choir and the children’s singing club, Tunes and Chips. Prior to this he was musical director at the historic St Michael’s Tenbury with its fine 4 manual Willis organ. As well as forming an adult SATB choir, he ran the music programme and co-directed the St Michael’s singers. During the week, he is a classroom music teacher in Birmingham. While reading music at the University of Sheffield, he was organ scholar of the Anglican Cathedral and for two terms, acting assistant director of music. He has been involved with project work centred on the pipe organ with young people and given recitals in a number of venues in England and accompanied choirs in Gloucester, Hereford and St Edmundsbury Cathedrals. John enjoys composition and improvisation and he recorded a set of improvisations based on the stages of the cross during the mini-lockdown of 2021 for use in the “zoom” meditations being held. He is an Associate of the Royal College of Organists and served as safeguarding lead in the now disbanded RSCM Worcester diocesan group and is a past treasurer of both the Gloucestershire and Worcestershire Organists associations.