Sarah MacDonald announced as RCO President Elect

The Royal College of Organists (RCO) has announced Sarah MacDonald as President Elect, to take office as President from July 2024.

Sarah is a conductor, organist, pianist, and composer. She holds the positions of Fellow and Director of Music at Selwyn College, Cambridge, Director of Ely Cathedral’s Girl Choristers, and Organist to the University of Cambridge.

Canadian-born, Sarah came to the UK in 1992 as Organ Scholar of Robinson College, Cambridge after studying piano, organ, and conducting at The Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School in Toronto. At Cambridge she read for a degree in music, and studied the organ with David Sanger.

Sarah holds the Fellowship diploma of the RCO, is a past winner of the College’s coveted Limpus Prize, and is a teacher and examiner for both the RCO and the University of Cambridge. She has played numerous recitals and conducted choirs throughout the UK, North America, the Middle East, New Zealand, and much of mainland Europe; has made more than 40 recordings as pianist, organist, conductor, and producer; and has had over 50 choral and organ compositions published in the UK, Canada, and the States. Her liturgical music is performed regularly throughout the world, and recent commissions include pieces for RSCM and Oxford University Press anthologies, the Anglican Association of Musicians, the Diocese of Ohio, as well as a major work for the Sixteen. In 2022 Sarah’s first book was published, a collection of 12 years of monthly essays primarily written for the American Guild of Organists about the English choral tradition.

Sarah has previously served with the RCO as both a trustee and a member of the Academic Board. She is a Patron of the Society of Women Organists, an Honorary Patron of the Herbert Howells Society, and President of the School Organists’ Association. In 2018 Sarah received the honorary ARSCM in recognition of her contribution to choral music in the UK and Canada.

RCO Chief Executive Sir Andrew Parmley said: “I am absolutely delighted to announce Sarah MacDonald as President Elect, and therefore next President, of the Royal College of Organists.

“As an organist, conductor and composer, Sarah has made immense contributions to the musical life of the UK, her native North America, and the wider world.

“She has also worked tirelessly to build links between the musical communities of the UK and North America, and been a genuine groundbreaker – when appointed to Selwyn in 1999 she became the first woman to hold such a post at an Oxbridge chapel, and she recently became the first woman appointed as University Organist at Cambridge, a prestigious ceremonial role dating back to 1670.”

Sarah MacDonald said: “I am honoured and humbled to have been invited to take on this iconic role, and I look forward to representing the College and supporting its outstanding work over the coming years.”

Picture: Sarah MacDonald (photo: Nick Rutter)