Prize-winning Royal Academy of Music students Joe Beech and Jake Brown are giving the next recital in a series organised by the St Albans International Organ Festival.

Herts Advertiser: Joseph BeechJoseph Beech (Image: T.Ellis)

The organ and percussion recital is being held at 5.30pm this Saturday, October 24, in St Peter’s Church, St Albans.

In the combined music the organ becomes an equal partner with the percussion, which is able to match the organ in volume and provide contrast to its lyrical, orchestral sonorities.

The duo’s repertoire is drawn from music written especially for the combination of instruments and arrangements of music originally written for other instruments.

In the former category is Nico Muhly’s Beaming Music which starts with a tiny rhythmic phrase and grows into huge, expansive chords and Dave Maric’s Borrowed Time, in which the percussion bubbles underneath ethereal organ chords.

The latter is represented by Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, a set of variations tha alternates frenetic activity with stillness and an arrangement of the trance-like Act 3 conclusion from Philip Glass’s opera Satyagraha.

Joseph and Jake made their debut in St Albans in the 2015 International Organ Festival. Joseph is currently also organ scholar at the London Oratory and has recently played under the batons of world renowned conductors Yan Pascal Tortellier and Marin Alsop.

Jake has been principal percussionist of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and has was recently awarded a Zildjian scholarship at the Royal Academy for achieving the highest orchestral exam results.

Entry to the recital is free with a retiring collection in aid of the International Organ Festival Society. After the recital the audience will have the opportunity to meet the soloists at a reception in the refectory.