Lunchtime Concert Series - Francesca Massey

Concert Organist Francesca Massey performs a varied programme of music spanning 5 centuries.  Recent works include vivacious pieces by Heiller (celebrating the 100^th year of his birth), Leighton and Ad Wammes.  Wammes’s Toccata Chromatica is an homage to Sweelinck’s virtuosic Fantasia Chromatica, which is also performed, alongside Bach's masterful Partita on Sei gegrüsset, Jesu gütig.

Francesca Massey has recently embarked upon a freelance portfolio career as a performer and teacher, having worked as a cathedral musician for 20 years.  Born in Birmingham in 1982, Francesca was educated at Cambridge University and the Royal Northern College of Music (on a prestigious ABRSM Scholarship), holding Organ Scholarships at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and Manchester Cathedral.  She later became Assistant Organist at Great St Mary's Church, Cambridge, Assistant Director of Music at Peterborough Cathedral, Sub-Organist at Durham Cathedral and Director of Music at Rochester Cathedral.

At the age of 19, Francesca gained all of the top prizes in the Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists’ diploma and was subsequently awarded the WT Best Memorial Scholarship and Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, and the Musicians Benevolent Fund’s Ian Fleming Award.  Her teachers included Kevin Bowyer, Jeremy Filsell, David Goode and Andrew Fletcher.

Francesca performs regularly as a recitalist throughout the UK and abroad.  She has three critically-acclaimed solo recordings to her name (Bravura!, The Forgotten Gem, and The complete works of Maurice Duruflé).  A fourth CD, recorded on the organ at St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, will be released in 2023.  Francesca has performed widely as an accompanist (in which capacity she works regularly with the BBC Singers), as well as recording a number of CDs with various choirs; Gramophone Magazine describing her as a ‘hugely gifted accompanist.’  Francesca has also worked extensively as a choral conductor, music teacher, continuo player, pianist and singer.