Kevin Bowyer

Kevin John Bowyer (; born 9 January 1961) is an English organist, known for his prolific recording and recital career and his performances of modern and extremely difficult compositions.

Biography Bowyer was born on 9 January 1961 in Southend-on-Sea, England. He sang in a choir and learnt the piano accordion and organ as a child. When the church where he practised refused to let him carry on practising, he says: "I went and had a key cut to the church and I got in anyway." He attended Cecil Jones High School in Southend, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music from 1979 to 1982 with organists Christopher Bowers-Broadbent and Douglas Hawkridge, harpsichordist Virginia Black, and Paul Steinitz. After graduation, he studied for two years with David Sanger after winning a Countess of Munster Musical Trust scholarship. When given a list of music to prepare at his first meeting with Sanger, he did not realise that it was a term's work and had learnt it all by the next week.

He has won the following competitions: Though he sees contemporary music as his vocation, he plays organ music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods onwards, and has shown an appreciation for the qualities of historical instruments in such music.

He is the first of two people to have played and recorded Kaikhosru Sorabji's First Organ Symphony in its entirety, and the only person to have performed Sorabji's Second Organ Symphony in its entirety.

He was organist of the Parish of Warwick from 1989 until 1998; during this time, he taught around the country for the St Giles International Organ School. and Glasgow Pipeworks series of recitals of new music for organ.

On learning music, he says: "I practise bits and pieces of it over and over again until my fingers are moving faster than my brain, then I home in on what is difficult and link these with the easier passages, but the easier passages are still no less learned than the difficult ones. Sometimes it's necessary to practise for twelve to fourteen hours a day, during which you need to keep your mind alert." in preparing for performances of Sorabji's three organ symphonies, the difficulties of which he describes thus:

The lengths are also considerable: the Second Symphony alone is over an hour longer than Messiaen's complete organ music put together. The Third Organ Symphony is expected to be premiered in 2022. Bowyer has also produced new typeset editions of Sorabji's three organ symphonies.

Recordings J. S. Bach: Complete organ works – 29 CDs (17 volumes) Jehan Alain: Complete organ works Johannes Brahms: Complete organ works Charles-Valentin Alkan – Complete organ and pedal piano works Thierry Pallesco: Organ works (Organ of Glasgow Cathedral, Priory Records) Jean Langlais: Organ works Robert Schumann and Julius Reubke: Organ works Paul Hindemith, Arnold Schoenberg, and Ernst Pepping: Organ works Olivier Messiaen: Organ works Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji: Organ Symphony No. 1 Charles Camilleri: Organ works Alan Gibbs: Magic Flutes: Organ music Peter Maxwell Davies, Jonathan Harvey, and Malcolm Williamson: Organ music Philip Glass and Christopher Bowers-Broadbent: Organ works Brian Ferneyhough, Wilfrid Mellers, and John Tavener: Mandelion: Organ music Paul Fisher: Organ music Arvo Pärt, Sofia Gubaidulina, Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Henryk Mikolaj Górecki: Organ music Niels Gade, Franz Syberg, Per Nørgård, and Carl Nielsen: Danish Organ Music A Late Twentieth century Edwardian Bach Recital In Memoriam John Ogdon Twentieth Century English Music Christmas Organ Music For Weddings A Feast of Organ Exuberance In Praise of Father Willis – the Alcock legacy Organ Xplosion 1 Dambusters! Organ Xplosion 2 The Storm Five English Abbeys Organ Party Vol.I ( Priory Records) Organ Party Vol.II (Priory Records) Organ Party Vol.III (Priory Records) The Organ Works of Marco Lo Muscio (Priory Records) Olivier Messiaen - Works for Organ (Priory Records) Green and Pleasant Land (Priory Records)

Writings Kevin Bowyer: 20th Century European Organ Music: A Toast, in The IAO Millennium Book, ed. P. Hale, Booklet notes to several of his recordings.

Notes and references