This welcome encounter between a precociously gifted organist with a global career and one of the great pipe organs of the world, is less “Organ Recital” and more “Anna Lapwood Slays the Organ.” The megastar bursts onto the stage like a rock star, for her introductory comments. The audience erupts.

In this programme, Lapwood, already an MBE at 30, fuses her classical training and brilliant intellect with cinematic music, attracting new fans to this ancient and complex instrument. She cuts a diminutive figure, now seated at the Grand Organ, designed and built by Sydneysider Ronald Sharp, high above the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House. Completed in 1979, the instrument is the world’s largest mechanical action organs, featuring 10,244 pipes and five manuals.

Anna Lapwood at the console of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall Grand Organ. Photo © Jay Patel

Charismatic, bouncing with excitement and passion, and dressed in her trademark sequinned jacket which catches every nuanced movement from afar, Lapwood unleashes the full majestic power of the Grand Organ in all its soloistic glory. Accompanied by bubbly insights, anecdotes and dedications, she...