Anna Lapwood

Anna Lapwood is a multi-faceted talent—an organist, broadcaster, conductor, composer, editor, and, since 2016, the director of music at Pembroke College Cambridge—who has made a speciality of smashing glass ceilings. Born in 1995 in High Wycombe, she was aged 21 when appointed to the Pembroke post, the youngest ever to secure such a position at Oxford or Cambridge. Previously she had been the first female organ scholar at Magdalen College Oxford. A born communicator, Lapwood’s versatility and energy is prodigious; and she’s proved an enthusiastic champion of new music (much of it commissioned by herself). She’s also refreshed the repertory with artful transcriptions: Images (2021), her debut organ disc, featured her own arrangements of Ravel and of the Four Sea Interludes from Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, all despatched with unassuming virtuosity and a keen ear for colour. Having appeared at the BBC Proms for the first time in 2021, she was subsequently named Associate Artist of the Royal Albert Hall and is also Artist in Association with the BBC Singers.