The Liverpool Blue Coat School Organ Scholarship aims to create a new generation of highly proficient young players to perpetuate solo and choral works in the European ecclesiastical and concert genres. Although one of the greatest achievements of European high culture, the organ and choral tradition is rapidly dying out. Therefore, this Scholarship’s value is far beyond merely preserving and advancing the musical tradition of just one country. Blue Coat School’s young scholars will bring fresh life to help revive this world-renowned European tradition for many more decades to come. Already the course has six scholars and Liverpool Blue Coat School has been awarded the UK Royal College of Music’s Accredited Institution status, the equivalent of winning an ‘Oscar’ of the organ world. This is just the start of our ambitious plan to make Liverpool the heart of Northern British organ and choral music teaching, adding to Liverpool’s reputation as a centre for serious music.  

The Liverpool Blue Coat Organ Scholarship is a five years-long free course, worth EUR6,000, for music students starting at 13-14-years and to 18-years old, which is the ideal age to immerse young people in this globally acclaimed European cultural tradition. It is paid for by fundraising sponsorship from sources outside Blue Coat School, which currently supports six scholars aged 13-15 years. The scholarship was inspired by the first ever restoration of Blue Coat School’s rare and historic 1875 Father Willis organ in 2019, undertaken by its original builder Henry Willis & Sons, which removed the entire instrument for the intensive overhaul at its Liverpool premises. The restoration was supported by the UK National Lottery Heritage Fund with a EUR222,8100 grant, and the project also created the Blue Coat School Community Choir to attract anyone whatever their age or singing experience to be accompanied by the organ. The scholarship is in an ideal means of ensuring for the first time the restored organ fulfils its great potential to be both a matchless instrument for teaching and a major public asset for concert performances and not hidden away in the school solely for its own pupils’ use. 
For a British state free school, Blue Coat is unique in having two magnificent pipe organs. Besides its Father Willis organ (designed for the English repertoire), it has a 1906 Walker organ (tuned for the Germano-Baroque repertoire) on which the scholars, who must be at least Grade 5 Piano, are taught. 
The scholarship is unsurpassed in the UK as the scholars are also tutored on two cathedral ‘big brothers’ of the school’s organs: Liverpool Anglican Cathedral’s Willis 1927 organ (the UK’s largest) and Liverpool RC Metropolitan Cathedral’s Walker 1967 organ. Tuition on these four very different organs both in size and orientation, makes the Scholarship unique. As the Blue Coat School Organ Scholarship progresses, we plan to appoint two scholars each year (the next auditions will be in November 2022) and also open it to applicants from other schools. This means a maximum of 10 scholars will be tutored simultaneously by 2023.   
The English organ and choral music religious tradition has survived at the heart of English cathedrals’ liturgy since the Reformation of 1534-88, but most of the music played is by continental European composers. Therefore it has become the last bastion of this European art form. However, even this survival is now threatened by the covid pandemic which has decimated choirs and curtailed opportunities for organists. This is why the Liverpool Blue Coat Organ Scholarship is needed more than ever to replenish this musical genre, as without training a new young generation of musicians it will be lost forever.
Substantial awards from music foundations, cultural organisations and individuals are an absolutely critical factor in enabling the Blue Coat School Organ Scholarship to become established as a national music educational asset. Without continuous fundraising by the Blue Coat School Development Office the Scholarship would have been just a short-lived idea, in spite of its successful launch at a public Gala Concert held in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and a Celebratory Concert to unveil the restored Father Willis organ, featuring our first two scholars and starring Prof Ian Tracey, Liverpool Anglican Cathedral Organist Titulaire, who performs in cathedrals and concert halls all over Europe, is a highly enthusiastic official Blue Coat Ambassador for the project.  
Although interest in the scholarship is spreading around the international music world, it is still very hard to raise funds for its continuation, although we are optimistic about achieving our long-term goals as described above. 
The Scholarship, which we believe is unsurpassed outside London, will also help to reinforce Liverpool’s reputation as a centre for serious music. The Royal College of Organists’ (RCO) Northern Director Tom Bell has observed progress from the project’s start and as a result Sir Andrew Parmley, RCO Chief Executive Officer, personally presented the school with RCO Accredited Institution status. 
A three-year promotional drive to publicise the Scholarship attracted widespread national and regional media coverage, appearing four times on UK television, five times in the UK national newspapers in UK music magazines such as The Organists’ Review and Choir & Organ and local press. A long report about the Scholarship was also shown on the Royal College of Organists’ International Organ Week online event which was streamed around the world.   We were very lucky to have two highly talented student organists as the project’s original ‘public faces’, Daniel Greenway, Associate of the RCO and now Keble College Organ Scholar at Oxford University, and Simon Cheung (as seen in the photograph).   
Prof Peter Toyne CBE, Blue Coat Organ Ambassador, and former chair Chairman of England’s Friends of Cathedral Music, confirms the importance of English organists and said: “Organ and choral music are one of the high points of Western Civilization, but they are under threat and an initiative like this one at Liverpool Blue Coat School is crucial to its survival.   
“When I attend organ concerts around Europe, many of the soloists are English and we are determined to keep this contribution to the continent alive and thriving with the Blue Coat Scholarship.
“As a former co-chair of the Young Organ Scholars’ Trust, I am delighted that the Blue Coat School Organ Scholarship proving to be that it will be at key part of the Trust’s plan to establish Liverpool as a ‘hub’ for student organists. 
“However, in order to ensure the future of the Blue Coat School initiative, funding is now being sought to establish further scholarships each year, thereby creating a secure long-term foundation for this imaginative scheme which is designed to ensure the survival of a vital element of the nation’s widely admired musical tradition which, at present, is under serious threat. I am fully supportive of this development and commend it wholeheartedly.”  
Dr Christopher McElroy, Scholarship Supervisor and Liverpool Metropolitan RC Cathedral Director of Music and Organ Scholarship, added: “I believe that the new Blue Coat School Organ Scholarship, with strong links to both of the city’s cathedrals and its own two fabulous instruments, offers a matchless training for young organists.  
“The newly restored historic Father Willis in the school’s assembly hall and the School Chapel’s fine Walker organ really complement the great Walker and Willis organs in our two cathedrals. As a Blue Coat Organ Ambassador, I can confirm this puts us in a unique position to train students in organ and choral work offering exciting opportunities which will revive this great musical art form across Europe and the world.”
 

Music is the international language that knows no borders. Composers and performers across Europe have long interacted with each other and this is especially true of organ and choral music. Over more for than a millennia this has flourished to become one of the greatest European cultural achievements. 
The pipe organ stands above all other instruments as the archetypal symbol of European music, with its origins in ancient Greece in the 3rd century BC. By early 800AD organs were becoming established in Western European church music and England built its first recorded pipe organ in 10th century AD. The oldest surviving organ dates from 1435 in Sion, Switzerland.   
From Mozart through to Messiaen, from the 18th century to the 20th century, across Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, the very best composers have chosen to write solo organ and choral works. British organists are most in demand to perform this organ repertoire all over the European continent, but like all traditions it must be nurtured and reinvigorated. With changing habits in society and less people attending churches, fewer of the population hear organ music, which is why for the sake of European culture the Liverpool Blue Coat School Organ Scholarship is so essential.