Jonathan Scott

Jonathan Scott

It's not often a job in the music industry comes with a health and safety warning. But if you're playing the organ in the Royal Albert Hall it's a different matter, as organist Jonathan Scott found out. 'I did a BBC Prom there [in 2004] and found a health and safety warning on the music stand of the organ: you can't play at full volume if people are working in the hall, as apparently if the doors are open you can hear it three miles away. It's a brilliant organ to play. My favourite.'

As someone who's been playing the organ since he was 10, Scott is used to adapting to the challenges of performing on different instruments. 'Its just something you get used to,' he says. 'The systems are the same but the size can really vary - it might be Liverpool Cathedral, which is one of the biggest in the world, one day and a tiny little church instrument with only five or six stops the next. You're always improvising as you go along and making quick musical decisions.'

'Learning to play the organ never really crossed my mind but the school I went to started me off on it'

This spontaneous quality is characteristic of Scott's career so far. 'It was completely hit and miss that I started to learn the organ at all,' he admits. 'I actually wanted to play the violin but eventually ended up learning the piano. Learning to play the organ never really crossed my mind but the school I went to started me off on it. You usually find organists have been choristers, or their fathers are vicars or something like that - so it's a very fluky thing I got into it, really.'

But Scott had obviously struck musical gold and, after two years at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester, he studied both piano and organ at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM).

He continues to divide his time between the two instruments. 'There are so many different things I end up doing - it's great,' he says. 'I could be playing a piano concerto, recording with an orchestra, giving organ recitals, or playing piano duets with my brother. I think it's nice to have a bit of focus on one instrument sometimes, then a bit more on the other.'

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