Our magnificent organ by Harrison and Harrison is one of the things we won’t be able to take with us when we vacate Leicester Cathedral for the forthcoming building works in January 2022. This year's Summer Organ Festival is the last last opportunity to hear the instrument in concert before 2024.
David Cowen has a varied career as a soloist, accompanist and teacher. He has performed alongside many orchestras and ensembles, including The City of London Sinfonia, Orchestra de Camera, Belmont Ensemble of London, Bardi Symphony Orchestra, The Saraband Consort, Charivari Agréable, and English Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble.
David also works regularly with choirs; in particular Leicestershire Chorale with whom he gives several concerts a year and has recorded a CD, Laudibus in Sanctis. For several years he was also Accompanist and Deputy Chorus Master of Northampton Bach Choir and he has prepared choirs for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.
As a soloist, David has played in venues throughout the UK and abroad, including Coventry Cathedral, Hexham Abbey, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, St Augustin, Paris, St Bonaventure, Lyon and the Basilique de Fourvière, Lyon. He has also performed as a soloist with Ensemble Orchestral Lyon-Région and the Band of the Grenadier Guards (as the soloist in Saint-Saëns’ ‘Organ Symphony’).
David was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and grew up in Northumberland where he was church organist from the age of 13. He has worked at Newcastle, Wells and Leicester Cathedrals, where he was originally Assistant Master of the Music and is now the Organist. He has toured France, Germany and Japan (as part of Festival UK ’98), made several recordings and has broadcast on national radio with Leicester Cathedral Choir and toured Brazil with Wells Cathedral Choir. For over ten years David was Organist and Director of the Choir at Holy Cross Priory Church, part of Leicester’s Dominican Priory.
David Cowen studied the organ with Timothy Hone at Newcastle Cathedral and Stephen Farr at Oxford. As a student at Oxford University, David was awarded the Organ Scholarship of St Peter’s College and the Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists diploma. He continued with private studies in organ and improvisation with Colin Walsh and in Paris with Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin. He obtained the Certificat d’aptitude d’Artiste Musicien of the Diocese of Paris, the Brevet Supérieur d’Improvisation at the Concours National d’Orgue Marcel Dupré (fugue and free improvisation). He was also a finalist in both Biarritz International Organ Competition and Haarlem International Improvisation Competition (in 2008).
A committed teacher, David regularly leads classes and workshops as well as working with individuals, particularly focusing on 19th and 20th century French repertoire and improvisation. He is also currently an Individual Music Teacher (Piano and Organ) at Loughborough Schools Foundation, an All Steinway School.