Leeds International Organ Festival

Artistic Director - Benjamin Newlove

Benjamin Newlove is the Organist of Leeds Cathedral - accompanying the Cathedral's daily sung Masses, working with the acclaimed Cathedral Choirs, including regular BBC radio broadcasts, directing Leeds International Organ Festival, and teaching for the Diocese of Leeds Keyboard Studies Programme. In addition to performing as an organist, harpsichordist and conductor, he is also a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh and recipient of the 2024-25 J. S. Anderson Organ Prize. His research focuses on the reception history and 21st-century compositional perspectives surrounding the Elizabethan choral music of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.

Prior to his relocation to Leeds, Benjamin was Director of the Royal Church of St. Alfege for three and a half years, and has previously held organ positions at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, St. Michael’s Church, Cornhill, St. Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge, and St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. Benjamin is a prizewinning master’s graduate of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (generously supported as a Help Musicians Postgraduate Award holder), a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, the Royal School of Music, Trinity College London, and the Royal Society of Arts. Prior to Trinity, Benjamin studied at King’s College London, the Royal Academy of Music, and Chetham’s School of Music. Previous teachers have included Christopher Stokes, Stephen Farr, Anne Marsden Thomas, Simon Johnson, and James Johnstone.

Benjamin has taken part in masterclasses led by Bine Bryndorf and Martin Schmeding, as well as playing in the Ryedale, Lausitz, New Paths, Greenwich Early Music, and London Contemporary Music festivals, both as recitalist and accompanist. In addition to this, he has given recitals at some of the UK’s most prestigious venues, including Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, St. John’s Smith Square, and the Temple Church. Benjamin has broadcast live on BBC Radio and numerous radio stations in Belgium, Poland, and the Netherlands. As a consort musician, he has performed with many UK-based professional groups, most notably: the Armonico Consort, Platinum Consort, Epiphoni Consort, Holst Singers, English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, Britten Sinfonia, and The Sixteen. In June 2025, Benjamin made his concerto debut, performing the organ concertos by Francis Poulenc and Malcolm Arnold with the Greenwich-based St. Paul’s Sinfonia.