Rye Arts Festival David Flood organ recital
Having begun musical studies at an early age, David held his first parish church organist post at 15 and has been deeply involved with church music ever since. He became Organ Exhibitioner of St John’s College, Oxford and spent a further postgraduate year in at Clare College, Cambridge.
In 1978 he was appointed Assistant Organist at Canterbury Cathedral, a post he held for eight years. During this time he was involved in many national and international occasions, such the enthronement of Archbishop Runcie and the visit of Pope John Paul II. He has made several recordings and has appeared on radio and television as well as performances in Cathedrals, churches and concert halls. He has given organ recitals in France, Germany, Holland, Australia, New Zealand and USA. He has studied with Gillian Weir and Jean Langlais.
In 1986 he was appointed Organist and Master of the Choristers at Lincoln Cathedral and, after two enjoyable years, returned to Canterbury in 1988 as Organist and Master of the Choristers. He has been responsible for the music at all the special occasions, in particular the Enthronements of Archbishops Carey, Williams and Welby, and the 1998 and 2008 Lambeth Conferences. The Cathedral choir under his direction has regularly toured in Europe and North America, most recently in April 2018. All the Canterbury Choir recordings (18 in the last 30 years) have been greeted with considerable acclaim.
Annually since August 1997 he has hosted an American Children’s Choir Festival with up to 400 children. In 1999, he visited Australia and New Zealand to direct residential choir courses and give recitals and made his first appearance as conductor at the Berkshire Choral Festival in Massachusetts, USA. He is much in demand in the USA to direct choral festivals and workshops, currently travelling two or three times every year. In 2008 he made his first appearance as director of the Washington All-State Symphonic Choir. In July 2002 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Music by the University of Kent and in 2008 an Honorary Fellowship of Canterbury Christ Church University, where he has recently been appointed a Visiting Professor in Church Music. David is also a Visiting Fellow of St John’s College, Durham and currently the President of the Cathedral Organists’ Association.
The responsibility of daily sung services is naturally the most important part of his work and performing exciting music for the millions of visitors and pilgrims to the Cathedral each year is a great joy.