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Anna Lapwood: ‘I tried to persuade Tom Cruise to take up the organ’

10:00, 29 October 2024

Fresh from giving Tom Cruise an impromptu organ lesson at a live orchestral screening of Top Gun: Maverick earlier this month at the Royal Albert Hall, where she is a resident artist, Anna Lapwood returns as conductor of the Pembroke College Girls’ Choir for a new six-track EP, The Waiting Sky, which is out on 8 November.

After being crowned one of the fastest-selling classical artists and the first female musician to reach number one on the Classical Artist Album Chart in 2023 with her album Luna, organ sensation Anna is riding the crest of a wave at present, having also travelled to Berlin to accept a Solo Recording Instrument of the Year award for Luna at The Opus Klassiks – Germany’s equivalent of Classic Brit Awards – on 13 October.

Anna Lapwood. Picture: Charlotte Levy
Anna Lapwood. Picture: Charlotte Levy

Highlighting the solid team mentality that Anna appears to have instilled in the Pembroke College Girls’ Choir, two songs on the new EP – Winter Time and The Waiting Sky – were both written collaboratively by the entire choir.

Speaking to the Cambridge Independent from her Cambridge office, Anna calls the upcoming EP release “very exciting”.

“It’s been something we’ve been building up to with the girls for a very long time now, so to actually see it coming out is an exciting moment,” she says.

On the two pieces the girls wrote themselves, Anna continues: “We have a little tradition where the final rehearsal of every Michaelmas term we write a piece for the parents and in this case they wrote The Waiting Sky.

“And it’s one of the most advanced pieces they’ve written together, so it seemed like an appropriate title for the whole album, to celebrate what they’ve done.”

Anna, whose recent concerts include sold-out performances with the London Symphony Orchestra, conductor Sir Antonio Pappano and pianist Yuja Wang – as well as guest appearances with both Aurora and Florence and the Machine – continues: “It’s always a collective effort, so we basically sit there together and they will suggest ideas and I will play the ideas for them.

“Or if I can’t figure out what they mean, then they’ll run to the piano and play it for me – and then we’ll try things out together, and it’s really nice.

“One of the older girls was saying how when we first started writing like that, she was always really nervous that her ideas would be wrong.

“But she has loved realising that there aren’t wrong ideas – there’s just different opinions and sometimes the piece can go in a direction that some of the girls didn’t expect, other girls wanted, and they end up falling in love with it even more.

“I think it’s a great way to teach them about teamwork and compromise and all the things we know are so important later in life.

“It’s always really fun [the collaborative songwriting experience] and I think also it gives them a sense of ownership over what they’re singing, and demystifies the whole process of composing, because I think it’s very easy as a young person to see composers and see this amazing classical music and think ‘Oh gosh, there’s no way I could even begin to do that’.

“But when you’re doing it as a group it somehow demystifies that a little bit.”

Anna Lapwood. Picture: Charlotte Levy
Anna Lapwood. Picture: Charlotte Levy
Anna Lapwood. Picture: Andy Paradise
Anna Lapwood. Picture: Andy Paradise

Anna hails the new EP as “a celebration of what young people are capable of”, adding: “One of the things that I love about this job so much is that they remind me on a daily basis that they are capable of so much more than we might imagine…

“I think it’s just that thing of never underestimate young people – and let them rise to the challenge.”

She notes that one of the youngest girls in the choir when she started it back in 2018 is now head chorister.

“It’s a privilege to watch them grow up,” says Anna, “and be a part of their musical growing up at the same time.”

Anna also runs the Cambridge Organ Experience for Girls and has just finished recording a new solo album, the follow-up to Luna.

She is involved in planning “lots of musical things” to celebrate the 40th anniversary of women at Pembroke College and, when we spoke, had also just finished recording a radio show for BBC Radio 3.

Also in the pipeline, this December will see two special Christmas performances with the choirs of Pembroke College at Snape Maltings Concert Hall (7 December) and Smith Square Hall, London (9 December).

Anna will then join Sandi Toksvig on 18 December for a special festive evening at the Royal Albert Hall.

On the subject of her work with fellow celebrities, she describes the recent encounter with Tom Cruise.

“It was amazing and it was really surreal… I had to just sort of forget that it was Tom Cruise and pretend that it was just a random person that I’d bumped into.

“But it was so exciting seeing how excited he was by the instrument, and how that child-like joy that I feel when I hear the organ is something that he felt as well.

“It was a lot of fun; I tried to persuade him to take up the organ, I don’t know if he’ll do it – I think he’s probably quite busy!”

Anna – or Anna Lapwood MBE, to give her her full title – was appointed director of music at Pembroke College, where she also conducts the Pembroke College Chapel Choir, in October 2016 at the age of 21.

She was awarded an associateship of the Royal Academy of Music and the prestigious ‘Gamechanger’ award from the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2023.

Sought-after as a conductor, Anna has directed the BBC Singers and leads choral workshops around the world, specialising in bringing music to children from impoverished backgrounds.

She is a trustee of the Muze Trust, a charity working to make music accessible to children and young adults in Zambia, and leads the Pembroke Music Exchange programme.

Anna was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours List for her services to music.

Anna Lapwood and the Pembroke College Girls' Choir's new EP, 'The Waiting sky'
Anna Lapwood and the Pembroke College Girls' Choir's new EP, 'The Waiting sky'

The Waiting Sky is out on 8 November. For more on Anna Lapwood, visit annalapwood.co.uk.

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