D'ARCY TRINKWON             International Concert Organist
  • Home
  • About
  • Concerts
  • Reviews
  • Repertoire
  • Recordings
  • YouTube
  • Photos
  • Contact
"The organ is an evocative instrument. Upon touching it the  magination is awakened,  and the unforeseen rises ​from the depths of the unconscious. It is a world of its own, always new, which will never be seen again, which comes out of the darkness, ​as an enchanted island rises from the Sea."   
SAINT-SAENS 

"Tradition is laziness."
LISZT

Picture
“I must tell you I take terrible risks. Because my playing is very clear, when I make a mistake you hear it. If you want me to play only the notes without any specific dynamics, ​I will never make one mistake. Never be afraid to dare."
VLADIMIR HOROWITZ 

"Taste isn't created from scratch. It is born of influences, cultivated by desire and maintained by knowledge."
PIERRE BERGE 
"The Orchestra is an Oil Painting, but The Organ is a Stained Glass Window."
HENRI MULET

PLEASE NOTE 
The following text is for this website only.
Promoters requiring an appropriate biography should request one.


Picture
​Performing recitals, concertos, radio and television broadcasts in concert halls, cathedrals, and churches worldwide, D'Arcy  has been a regular performer at international festivals and celebrity series from London to Edinburgh, Paris to Salzburg, Berlin to Münich, Oslo to Ghent, Buenos Aires to Los Angeles, Copenhagen to Montevideo etc.

Recent appearances have included both the reopening of the restored organ and 950th anniversary celebrations of Selby Abbey; his fifth recital at Madeleine, Paris; City of London Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Leeds International Concert Season, Carlisle International Summer Festival, Mananan International Festival of Music and the Arts, Festival Permanente de Buenos Aires (Argentina), Festival Internacional del Uruguay (Montevideo), Bonner Reger Internationale Tagen (Bonn), Berlin Cathedral Orgelzyklus, Basilika Konzerte Kevelaer, Passau International Organ Festival, Münich International Organ Series, Orgelsommer Darmstadt, Gents Orgelcentrum Europees Orgelfestival, Vox Organi Festival (Belgium), Olomouc International Festival (Czech Republic), XVI Rassegna Internazionale d’Organo ‘Citta della Spezia’ (Italy), Wimbledon International Music Festival, Dimanches Musicaux de la Madeleine, Reutlinger Orgelsommer, Gummarusconcerten Lier, Chemin des Orgues (Troyes), Festival International d’Orgue de Sens, Les Heures Musicales du Havre, Les Éstivales d’Orgue, the 27th Festival International d’Orgue in Bordeaux Cathedral, Radio-France Festival Montpellier Cathedral, Points d’Orgue Saint-Florentin etc. 



"He who would trace the mere outlines of the model before his eyes with uncomprehending fidelity,
without imbuing them with the interpretation of passions and emotions drawn from life -
he would make a very poor artist, or none at all..."

LISZT 
  
An unusual feature of his career has been his performance of many solo concert series,
including a complete Bach cycle. Others have included. 
Click on each  for full details 
​
​
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
The above was cancelled due to COVID 

Picture

Picture
Repeatedly invited to return by promoters.  He has, for example given more than 10 recitals in the ​Été Musical d’Auxerre/Festival International d'Orgue d'Auxerre and 7 in the Kongsberg Internasjonale Orgel Sommer .

As much at home performing on great modern instruments as on famous historic ones, he approaches each with a different stylistic awareness and perception. Particular to choose music most suited to express the character of each instrument, each programme is thus a singular undertaking.  In addition to the established masterpieces,  he has given many premiers and first performances - including the UK premier of Messiaen's Prélude in 2002.
​

​Alongside his concert career, he
 is also Organist to the University of  Sussex where he gives monthly recitals on the iconic 1966 Grant, Degens & Rippin organ in the University's Meeting House.
University of Sussex - a leading, research-intensive university

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

Some of the previous series have included:

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

​On a 'local' level has served as President for both
the Crawley & Horsham Organists' Association 
and the Brighton & District Organists' Association: 
he is also a member of the Kent Organists' Association. 


https://www.chdoa.org.uk  
​https://www.bdoa.org.uk     
https://www.kcoa.org.uk



​

Receiving his chain of office as President elect of the Brighton & District Organists Association 2023 

Picture

D'Arcy has held posts as a church musician
​only at various intervals in his career: 


Organist & Director of Arts at St Paul's, Hammersmith Broadway, London (1991-1997)

Organist of St Augustine's, Kensington, London (2001-2004)

Organist of Worth Abbey (2011-2023).
​Press features & articles include   Click on each image  to see article
Picture
Picture
Picture
​An Organist of Our Time
​The Organ Magazine
www.theorganmag.com


Ask me a question
​Music Journal
Incorporated Society of Musicians
​
www.ism.org

​Five Questions
​The Lady Organist  
www.theladyorganist.com


​
​“Ideas should be neutral. But man animates them with his passions and folly. 
Impure and turned into beliefs, they take on the appearance of reality.
The passage from logic is consummated. Thus ​are born ideologies, doctrines, and bloody farce.”  

​
CIORAN

​
D’Arcy demonstrated a prodigious talent for the graphic arts from earliest childhood.  He began piano lessons at the age of four and was later Head Chorister at Canterbury Cathedral.    Subsequently studied in London, the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, and in Paris; his teachers and mentors were Allan Wicks, H. A. and Jennifer Bate, Jane Parker-Smith, Jean Guillou and Odile Pierre. 
​
Picture
With Jennifer Bate
​​1978 
Picture
H. A. Bate  at the organ of
​St James', Muswell Hill,
​London
Picture
With Jean Guillou
​1988
Picture
Allan Wicks 
Canterbury Cathedral 
​1976
Picture
With Jane Parker-Smith
1990 
Picture
With Odile Pierre,  Canterbury Festival 
1990 
Picture










At work - a lesson with Odile Pierre
1993


IN MEMORIAM

2020 
saw the deaths of three outstanding organists who had been D'Arcy's mentors at different stages of his development from his earliest days at the organ:  ​
Jennifer Bate
​Jane Parker-Smith
Odile Pierre. 


He paid heartfelt tributes to two of these towering artists in ​Choir & Organ.
Picture
Picture
Picture
It was sad to hear of the death of Daniel Chorzempa (1944-2023)

He was an outstanding musician I so admired and was so inspired by.     
​I so nearly became his pupil...  

​


​D'Arcy's own teaching has included coaching, masterclasses, ​and ​examining at conservatoires
and colleges at home and abroad.    For some years he taught at Oxford. 
​
​​
"Sooner or later you will recognise that complete freedom does not exist. Do not give in to pure fantasy, nor to current fashions.
One cannot pursue an ideal without disciplining oneself – that is as true in art as in science. Do not worry about being original:
​that desire is nothing but an intellectual flirtation, for the originality of great artists is unconscious.”  

 MARCEL DUPRÉ


"You will learn that everything in life can betray you  - health, happiness, money - except for one thing which, believe me,
will never let you down. That one thing is music."

LOUIS VIERNE   


"Music can be a tyrant - but offers the greatest gifts."
ODILE PIERRE 
​
​

Picture
 Articles written by D'Arcy Trinkwon include

​​Allan Wicks - a personal tribute                   THE ORGAN, May 2010

The Legend of Jeanne Demessieux            THE DIAPASON, November 2008

Jeanne Demessieux: Portrait of a Star     ORGANISTS' REVIEW, November 2008
                                                                                        reprinted in Organ News, 2018 

Jeanne Demessieux   
Odile Pierre                                                              
Music et memoria - Orgues et organists
                                                                                       
(musimem.com)
 

​






Battle of the organs...
With John Scott Whiteley - Selby Abbey 2018

Battles, dialogue, alliance - but all great humour and  fun...
CLICK to read a commentary on a concert with a difference. 


Picture

​
“What all artists ought to hold as indisputable – a law that binds them all –  is that there is no true art without reflective thought and purpose.”
WIDOR 

"As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible but more mysterious."
SCHWEITZER


CONTACT  
Telephone     from the UK  01622 814415         
                         from outside the UK  +44 1622 814415    
E-mail             concerts ( @ ) darcytrinkwon.com   remove brakcets/spaces