The Organ Scholars

KATHERINE HAMBRIDGE is Senior Organ Scholar and holder of the Turle Scholarship in Music at Girton College, Cambridge. Having spent her gap year as Organ Scholar at Worcester Cathedral, she is an experienced recitalist and has performed at Chelmsford Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Nottingham's Albert Hall and Douai Abbey, among other venues. In December 2004 she travelled to Germany with the Klais Scholarship 2004 (awarded by the Eric Thompson Trust), which enabled her to have lessons with Professor Johannes Geffert and serve a mini-apprenticeship at the Klais organ works in Bonn. Katherine also performs as singer and conductor in Cambridge and further afield. This summer she is directing the Cambridge Vokalsolisten in a series of concerts in Stuttgart, as well as performing with them as mezzo-soprano soloist.

RICHARD SANDS is Junior Organ Scholar and Choral Exhibitioner at Girton College, Cambridge, where he is reading for a degree in Engineering. A former chorister at the Savoy Chapel, London, Richard spent three years as Organ Scholar at Bromley Parish Church, London, and a year as Director of Music at St. Paul's, Crofton before coming to Cambridge. He has enjoyed many opportunities to accompany and direct choirs, and with them has toured Rome, Tallinn and New York. Richard studied organ with Henry Fairs, François-Henri Houbart and Thierry Mechler, among others. Over the past few years, Richard has conducted premières of two orchestral works composed in a film-music style, working with members of the Orchestra of St John's, Smith Square. He is currently working on a third piece, as well as a requiem for choir, orchestra and counter-tenor solo.