The organ at Christchurch Priory, completed in 1999, incorporates historic pipework from a previous Father Willis organ and features a new solo division added in 2017.
Composer Biography
Gardner's mother, Muriel, actively steered him away from a medical career, despite marrying into a medical family, to pursue music.
Composer's Artistic Vision
John Gardner's distinctive compositional style is characterized by his love for counterpoint and jazz, which he stated were the two things he liked most in music.
Composer Biography
John Gardner's father, an army surgeon, was killed in the First World War when an enemy shell landed on his billet in France.
Performer Biography
Catherine Ennis, for whom many of John Gardner's organ works were composed, was a trailblazing organist and one of the first women to hold a cathedral organist position.
Composition History
Gardner's first major success was his Symphony No. 1 in D minor, which premiered to acclaim at the 1951 Cheltenham Festival and made his name as a composer.
Composition History
Gardner renumbered his works in 1947, creating an 'Old Series' for his early pieces and reserving new opus numbers for his mature compositions, which eventually reached Op. 249.
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