Anna Lapwood, renowned for introducing the organ to new fans through viral TikTok videos, high-profile collaborations and sold-out live concerts, takes flight with a remarkable new album. On ‘Firedove’, audiences will hear her spread her wings in a range of both new and familiar repertoire, all performed in her engaging and inimitable style. Recorded in overnight sessions at Nidaros Cathedral – the spectacular Gothic masterpiece founded in the 11th century in Trondheim, Norway – this album perfectly demonstrates Lapwood’s open-minded approach to music, one where a Vierne scherzo can sit alongside a rendition of Robbie Williams’s hit song ‘Angels’, and Maurice Durufle’s ‘Prelude and Fugue Sur le nom d’Alain’ with Bob Dylan’s ‘Make You Feel My Love’. ‘Firedove’ is, without doubt, her most personal album to date, and perhaps her most surprising, performing works ranging from revered French organist Louis Vierne’s technically demanding ‘Naiades’, Poppy Akroyd’s remarkable, shifting ‘Murmurations’ or Hania Rani’s transcendent, thought-provoking ‘Glass’. ‘I wanted to create an album where the listener doesn’t quite know where it’s going to go next’, Lapwood says. ‘There are lots of little easter eggs in there that you wouldn’t expect – even the first appearance of the choir – and a through-line of flight and spreading wings, because this does feel as though I’ve found what I want to say as an artist. I’m very proud of it’.
