Anna Lapwood loves cheese and likes film music.
At 30, Lapwood is also possibly the world’s most famous organist, with four million followers across social media.Â
In 2025, Lapwood became the official organist of London’s famous Royal Albert Hall, the first person to hold the position in the hall’s 155 year history.Â
Her concert programs often combine music by the great organ composers like Bach with arrangements of popular film music.
Music from Interstellar, Pirates of the Caribbean and Narnia are staples at her shows.Â
Anna Lapwood wanted to change people’s perception about the organ as an interesting rather than an outdated instrument. (Anna Lapwood: Nick Rutter)
Lapwood is on her first Australian tour and shares the secret to her social media success, as well as how that has turned into sell-out concerts all over the world.
The TikTok organist
Lapwood is often called the TikTok organist, posting regularly using the #OrganTok hashtag.
But Lapwood says she didn’t set out to grow a massive following on social media.
“I just wanted to share the music that I really love playing, and I want to make people realise how great the organ is,” Lapwood says.
The organ is often described as an orchestra wrapped up in an instrument.
A typical pipe organ has multiple keyboards called manuals, a pedal board and hundreds of knobs called stops, which control the sound and tone colour that come out of the instrument.
But Lapwood regularly hears the comment that “no one really likes the organ”.
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She wanted to change people’s perception by showing what the instrument can do, through videos filmed in the often-cramped conditions of the organ loft.
“I film 90% of my videos by balancing my phone against my boot,” Lapwood shares.
The reason, Lapwood says, is because “using my phone is easy and quick and doesn’t interfere with my day-to-day practice, which is what I’m trying to capture.”
From social media videos to sold-out concerts
Lapwood started sharing her videos on TikTok during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.Â
Her followers grew rapidly after she posted a performance with electronic artist Bonobo during their appearance at Royal Albert Hall in May 2022.
Anna Lapwood shares her favourite music
The video garnered more than 5.6 million views on Lapwood’s TikTok account.
“I still get people who come to my concerts because of the Bonobo video,” Lapwood says.
The video became a gateway for audience members who had never been to a classical concert or an organ recital to find out more about Lapwood’s live performances.
“We can all think that social media isn’t real, but [people] do come to the concerts and then they do come back,” Lapwood says.
In July 2025, Lapwood’s free organ recital at Germany’s Cologne Cathedral drew a crowd of 13,000 people, far exceeding the church’s capacity of 4,000.
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“I had a couple of videos go viral from Cologne while I was practising,” Lapwood says.
While the cathedral’s organ concert series had a regular audience of thousands, the organisers were surprised by the sheer number of people who lined up to hear Lapwood perform.
Lapwood decided to present two back-to-back concerts to ensure the people who’d turned up could hear her play.
“The second concert was even more full than the first, and then apparently there were another 5,000 stuck outside who never got in,” she says, adding she didn’t know until it was too late.
“People ended up waiting for like five hours, and that could have gone bad so fast,” Lapwood says.
“Instead, I heard the most positive stories about how everyone in the queue made friends and were looking after each other,” Lapwood says.
“That just shows what a powerful tool social media can be for bringing in a new audience to our instrument and to our music.”
Breaking down the gender barrier in the organ world
One of the most popular hashtags Lapwood uses is #PlayLikeAGirl.
Lapwood says the hashtag was a reaction to a comment made by a teacher who told her to “play like a man” with power and authority.
“In the UK, the organ is heavily linked to the world of choral music, which has historically been a very male dominated place with the men and boys choir tradition,” she explains.
“It was the boys who then played the organ.”
Anna Lapwood regularly calls out gender stereotyping, such as “play like a man”. (Anna Lapwood: Sondre Eriksen Hensema)
While there have been famous female organists in history, such as Gillian Weir and Jennifer Bate, often women are still the exception rather than the norm, according to Lapwood.
Until recently, Lapwood herself was regarded as an exception.
When she was 21, she became the youngest director of music at Cambridge’s Pembroke college, stepping down in 2025 to pursue a career as a recitalist.
During her tenure, Lapwood ran initiatives to break the gender barriers in the organ world, including a 24-hour Bach-a-thon involving 24 female organists taking turns playing Bach’s organ music.
She also ran a Cambridge organ experience for girls.
Lapwood recalls how the program started with 20 girls who had never played the organ before. By the time the program ended, it was up to 90 girls who had had some experience with the instrument.
“We didn’t have to run a separate day for girls,” Lapwood says.
“Not having to do it anymore felt like a victory. That’s when you know you’re making progress.”
Content that appeals to different people
These days, Lapwood has an audience that is more familiar with the inner workings of the organ and what it’s capable of.
“My technique is just to tell people what I find exciting about the organ and organ music with the view that different things are going to appeal to different people,” she says.
Lapwood often shows different aspects of playing the organ such as ‘registering’, the process of sequencing the sounds she’s using for a performance from the pipes, pedals and stops on a particular organ.
“My concert programs tend to use about 350 different sounds,” she shares.
She also regularly posts content about rehearsing overnight in iconic buildings, as well as snippets of her playing the organ.
Lapwood says her musical choices are chiefly guided by “the music that I really love and the music that I desperately want to play.”
Anna Lapwood says there’s a long tradition of musicians arranging popular music for organs. (annalapwood.co.uk: Nick Rutter)
“I hope that by playing a range of different repertoire, different pieces and genres, some of it will appeal to everyone in some way.”
During her Australian tour, Lapwood will perform excerpts from the Lord of the Rings, which she transcribed for organ in consultation with composer Howard Shore.
Australian audiences will also be able to hear her play Camille Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony (which you might recognise from the movie Babe) and the Australian premiere of Max Richter’s Organ Concerto Cosmology, written especially for Lapwood.
Anna Lapwood is currently touring in Australia. Following performances on the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ on March 13 and 14, Lapwood performs at the Sydney Opera House from March 19-28. Hear Lapwood with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra live on ABC Classic on Friday 27 March at 8pm.
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