Putting together a programme for an organ recital was always going to be a challenge for me. I’m much more of a pianist and a romantic, and there’s a conspicuous shortage of romantic organ music.

The seed for this concert was planted back in April when I realised that Star Wars Day (May the fourth) fell on a Sunday this year, and indeed on an Alive for Christ service day. I then went looking for Star Wars sheet music to play, and in doing so found a lovely looking piano arrangement of the Imperial March (from The Empire Strikes Back) which I thought would adapt beautifully to the organ, but was much too difficult for me to learn in a week. I then remembered that when Alison was arranging the recital series in 2013 I had said something about ‘maybe next year’…

So what else to play? For me it was a very short step from the music of John Williams to the music of Jeremy Soule, the ‘John Williams of video game music’ and another series close to my heart: The Elder Scrolls. This involved more searching on the internet, and as even less of this has been published as sheet music even a little transcription by ear. I hope you agree that the resulting organ arrangement of a couple of pieces has come out quite well.

Obviously I needed to write something, and so I’ll be playing the world premiere of my new Organ Sonata. I don’t really want to say too much about it, I’m always more interested in hearing other people’s thoughts on my music than writing my own.

Franz Liszt is one of the few, perhaps the only, truly great romantic composer to write extensively for the organ, and produced some really wonderful organ music. Much of which is very long and fiendishly difficult. I’m going to play two Church Hymns, which are based on plainchant, and a chance to showcase just how quiet and delicate the organ can be.

The whole thing will be rounded off with Widor’s mighty Toccata, which I’ve played a couple of times this year and you’re all probably heartily sick of by now. I promise to put it away after this… at least for a bit!

If you’re interested in what I’m doing on the piano at the moment, I do now have a website. Given that there is already an American musician with my name on the internet I am publishing my music under my middle name: Ilmar. If you head along to ilmarmusic.com you can hear some of what I’ve been writing and playing recently.