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John Challenger

Organist John Challenger has received acclaim for his performances on the great Father Willis organ at Salisbury Cathedral, where he is the assistant director of music. He also plays piano and has toured widely as a recitalist. Challenger was born in Hereford, England, and his first performance experience came as a chorister at Hereford Cathedral. He also heard Roy Massey, Peter Dyke, and Geraint Bowen play the organ there, and he began to study the organ during this period on Hereford's organ, also a Father Willis instrument. His teachers have included David Briggs, Jeremy Filsell, Mark Williams, and David Sanger. In 2006, Challenger was named organ scholar -- a student who earns scholarship support by performing at services and the like -- at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists in 2008. That year, he became an organ scholar at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he served as the director of the St. John's Singers student mixed-voice choir; in 2011 and 2012, he served as the assistant organist at St. John's College Chapel. In 2012, Challenger assumed his current position as the assistant director of music at Salisbury Cathedral, but in 2017, he returned to St. John's College temporarily as the director of music, serving as a sabbatical replacement for director Andrew Nethsingha and leading the chapel choir on a BBC Radio 3 live Ash Wednesday broadcast. He also performs on piano as an accompanist and recitalist, as a continuo player on harpsichord, and has appeared across Europe as well as major British events such as the Three Choirs Festival and Windsor Festival. Challenger has made several recordings, beginning with Great Hymns from Salisbury in 2014, on the Priory label. The critically acclaimed Elgar from Salisbury, an album of organ transcriptions, followed on Regent in 2015. Challenger returned in 2018 with Organ Prom, an album marking the decommissioning-for-renovation of Salisbury's Father Willis organ, and in 2021, Challenger released Salisbury Meditation, marking both the organ's return to action and the use of the cathedral as a vaccination site during the coronavirus pandemic.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Discography

11 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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