Thomas Heywood
Thomas Heywood is one of Australia’s most sought-after concert organists, with an enviable reputation as a leading interpreter of the large-scale romantic and transcription repertoire on grand historic instruments.
Born into a Melbourne musical family in 1974, Thomas Heywood is an honours graduate of the University of Melbourne. Since 1994 he has been Organist and Choirmaster of St John’s Anglican Church, Toorak, where he presides over the famous Hill organ, directs the choir and plays for over 300 services each year.
He keeps a demanding schedule of around 80 solo recitals a year as part of the Victorian State Organ Concerts, an annual series he founded with his wife Simone. He has performed in concert halls, town halls, cathedrals and churches throughout Australia and New Zealand, including an acclaimed recital at the Sydney Opera House at the age of 17.
He has inaugurated many new and restored organs around Melbourne and Sydney, and has appeared in several concerts with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In 1994 the City of Melbourne presented him in a year-long series of Grand Organ Concerts at the Melbourne Town Hall – the first such series for fifty years – an instrument he later recorded on Melbourne Sounds Grand (MD 3120).
Internationally he has played throughout the USA, including the world’s largest playable organ in Philadelphia, and in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland and Italy, receiving a standing ovation at St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.
His commitment to Australia’s historic organs led to his election as a Councillor of the Organ Historical Trust of Australia; he also serves on the Pipe Organ committee of the National Trust of Australia. His playing has been broadcast nationally on ABC-FM and is regularly heard on 3MBS-FM and other MBS stations.
In 1997 he founded annual Grand Organ Concerts at St John’s Toorak, devoted exclusively to masterpieces of the concert organ repertoire, a series reflected on Concert Organ Masterpieces (MD 3210).
Press quotes
In Thomas Heywood, Australia undoubtedly has a new virtuoso organist.
Heywood's playing is in the venerable tradition of Town Hall recitalists and includes a certain amount of bravura necessary to bring off the many Edwardian and Victorian works on the program
Heywood's technique is immaculate, his projection of the music positively three-dimensional, and his obvious enjoyment of the task radiates through the notes, catching up the listener and carrying us along the way.
Heywood’s playing is versatile and vigorous … powerful yet subtle, sonorous yet never overwhelming.
Thomas Heywood is featured on the following titles
Concert Organ Masterpieces
Masterpieces from the concert organ repertoire, played by Thomas Heywood on the restored Hill organ at St John’s Church, Toorak. The programme draws on his 1997 Grand Organ Concerts at the church.
Arranger
Kodály Missa Brevis
Recorded on their 1997 European tour in Northern Italy and Germany, the Choir of Ormond College sings Kodály’s Missa Brevis, with works by Tye, Howells and Bach.
Just Married: Organ Music for a Wedding
A compilation of history's most celebrated organ music, long popular at weddings. The insert notes usefully group the tracks as processionals, recessionals and music for the signing of the register.
Melbourne Sounds Grand
Thomas Heywood’s first commercial recording presents the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Concert Organ in a grand-concert programme of virtuoso showpieces and transcriptions, chosen to display its orchestral colour, dynamics and power.