Peter Hurford

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Peter Hurford OBE is a British organist, born St Cecilia's day (November 22) 1930 in Minehead, Somerset.

He studied both music and law at Jesus College, Cambridge, graduating with dual degrees, subsequently obtaining an enviable reputation for both musical scholarship and organ playing.

He is best known for his interpretations of Bach, having recorded the complete Bach organ works for Decca and BBC Radio 3. His expertise also encompasses recordings of the Romantic literature for organ, performances notable for attention to stylistic detail. His playing style is noted for clean articulation, beauty of expression, and a sense of proper tempi.

Hurford was appointed organist and choirmaster at St Albans Cathedral in 1958, serving with great distinction in this capacity for exactly twenty years. He conceived the idea of an organ competition in 1963, partly to celebrate the new Harrison & Harrison organ designed by Ralph Downes and himself. This venture was successful mainly because of the young Hurford's rapidly growing stature in Britain and overseas as a result of his refreshing notions of authentic performing style. This has grown into the St Albans International Organ Festival, a world-renowned festival of organ music with competitions whose past winners include many of the great names in modern organ music including Dame Gillian Weir, David Sanger, Thomas Trotter and Kevin Bowyer.

He is the holder of a number of Honorary Doctorates and was appointed an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College in 2006 and has been appointed an OBE. He has written a book: Making Music on the Organ (1998, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-816207-3) and published a deal of choral music for the Anglican liturgy, much of it issued by leading publishers such as Novello and Oxford Universtity Press. His Litany to the Holy Spirit to a famous text by Robert Herrick, is an exquisite miniature and a classic of the genre - it is sung world-wide.