MA (Cantab.), BMus (Lond.), ARCM. Retired 1997 after 9 years teaching academic music and keyboard harmony at the Purcell School. Previously Head of Music at Esher College where he organized regular concerts and was musical director for five musicals.
Organist and Choirmaster, Christ Church (United Reformed), Leatherhead: choir practice Friday 8pm, an anthem most Sunday mornings and special musical services twice a year (Palm Sunday and Christmas). He has held this post, with a short break, since 1965, and has given many concerts and recitals in the church including Schütz's "St Matthew Passion" with tenor soloist Roger Norrington in 1963.
During 2000 he played the complete organ works of J.S. Bach (277 pieces) at church services, and during 2007 is doing the same for Buxtehude. His choice of organ voluntaries covers a wide range of composers, and he is planning to publish on the internet a database of 2,760 organ pieces with timings, including the complete organ works of J.S. Bach, Boyce, Bruhns, Buxtehude, Howells, Leighton, Mendelssohn, Messiaen, Pachelbel, Stanley, Sweelinck, Tunder, S.S. Wesley and Whitlock. Organist for weddings, funerals and concerts. He has served as church Elder and edits the Christ Church Newsletter.
He was conductor 1992-2000 of Leatherhead Choral Society, which took part in the Leith Hill Musical Festival (Festival Conductor: Brian Kay) and also gave two concerts a year.
He has started a new chamber choir in the Leatherhead area:
Antiphonia gave its first concert, "O Clap Your Hands", in October 2006 at Christ Church, Leatherhead, as part of the Tenth Mole Valley Arts Alive Festival. Good sightreaders interested in joining should email Anthony Cairns at acairns@iao.org.uk.
He uses computers (RiscOS and WinXP) for -
- music typesetting using Sibelius5.1® (full orchestral scores, choral music, chamber music and organ, and a little composing and arranging);
- scanning and digital camera photography using DPlngScan and Photodesk software for RiscOS;
- website design and/or management for twelve organizations including Bookham Choral Society, Christ Church (UR), Leatherhead, and various organists' associations. He is an enthusiast for RiscOS (developed from the Acorn operating system), a platform which he prefers to Linux, Mac or Windows: its advanced graphics and other facilities are used in preparing brochures, programmes and handbills for orchestral and choral concerts and church magazines and service sheets, and in designing websites and publishing them on the internet, and he has always found RiscOS email and other software easy to use and impervious to computer viruses. His daughter, Liz Cairns, a Mac specialist who works at Sibelius Software Ltd, has helped with tips on website design.
His son, Sebastian, is a qualified engineer employed by the German trench heating firm Kampmann as their UK representative. In June 2005, Seb married a Danish photographer, Betina Bech Hvarregaard, at Dronninglund Slot in north Denmark.
Other hobbies include harpsichord-making, organ design, and chamber music (piano, cello, harpsichord, organ). His two harpsichords and clavichord, made to his own designs, are now undergoing restoration. He also owns a superb 4-rank house organ, built by Peter Collins (pd_collins@lineone.net) and completed in June 2000; come and hear it by appointment!
Email address: acairns@iao.org.uk .
Page updated: 17th October, 2008. (Webmaster: Anthony Cairns at acairns@iao.org.uk).
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