Gala NextGen Organ Concerts
2025

ANZCO’s GALA NextGen Organ Concerts give audiences the chance to hear tomorrow’s leaders today and give young organists the chance to perform on some of Australia’s finest pipe organs. Every NextGen Organ Concert features a variety of young organists performing an extensive range of repertoire.

For more details about the next GALA NextGen Organ Concert, see the link to the poster below:

Sunday 4 May 2025 at 3 pm – 4 pm
St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Please contact Christopher Cook, ANZCO Director of Development, for further information about the NextGen Organ Concerts.

Priceless opportunity

These concerts are a priceless opportunity for younger performers to experience others’ playing and to gain vital experience in performance themselves. 

NextGen Organ Concerts also provide the audiences with the joy of hearing a new generation of musicians, and of being able to facilitate and encourage them in this wonderful pursuit.

As well as providing invaluable performance opportunities for the young organists, whose performances are shown live on screen, ANZCO divides the ticket sales from every NextGen Organ Concert amongst the young organists to provide them with further financial support. This is another initiative unique to ANZCO.

The performers are also visible to everyone in the building live on screen!

Bring a group of young people, from your family or community, to be introduced to the organ; and as presented by other young musicians!

We hope to see you at these events soon.

Would you like to perform?

Amongst other ventures which ANZCO promotes, the NextGen Organ Concerts provide a platform for performers who have repertoire sufficient for one item, or up to ten minutes of music, to perform with others within a coherent and balanced program and in a supportive environment.

As we have an ever-growing base of young organists and appreciative audiences, we ask intending players to simply provide an audio file of their playing. This file can be uploaded to dropbox with a link, or even recorded as a memo and texted. We know that this will aid us in designing the best program and ensuring an even standard of performance.

On the practical level we need the full titles of pieces with full names of the composers and the dates of birth/death. The duration of your performance should be included as well.

We ask that these details reach us five weeks before the concert date. 

On the day, performers need to be in concert attire, and in attendance thirty minutes prior to the commencement of the concert, with a prepared, short spoken introduction to their item. The compere will introduce each performer, who then speaks briefly prior to playing.

Please contact Christopher Cook, Director of Development, for further information or to submit your repertoire.

Grand Organ Discovery

One of the principal aims of the Australian and New Zealand College of Organists is the encouragement of developing musicians who play the organ or who may wish to explore this rich side of musical life.

Included in these NextGen events is a Grand Organ Discovery component: a supervised ‘open console’ where members of the public can see the organ close up and often take up the offer to play.

This is a wonderful chance to engage with the King of Instruments!

The Grand Organ Discovery is, of course, free but there is admission charged to the NextGen Organ Concerts. These ticket sales are then divided between the performers and distributed following the concert.

This is all possible thanks to the great support of the Organists, Directors of Music, Clergy and Staff of the venues who so generously allow us access to these superb buildings and famous instruments.