Afternoon Music November 2026

Peter Dyke was born in Hertfordshire and was organ scholar of Robinson College, Cambridge. He was awarded second prize in the prestigious Interpretation Competition at the St Albans International Organ Festival in 1993, and in 1998 he took up his current post as Assistant Organist at Hereford Cathedral, where, as well as accompanying the daily services, he has played regularly for the choir on frequent radio and television broadcasts and accompanied them on tours to North America, continental Europe and South Africa.

He founded and directs the Cathedral’s Voluntary Choir, which has made six tours to Germany and actively supports young composers of sacred music. Peter has a keen interest in teaching and has helped to found two highly successful organists’ training schemes; his work in this and other fields was recognised by the Royal School of Church Music in its awarding him the ARSCM in 2010.

His most recent solo CD, including his own transcription of Elgar’s Enigma Variations, quickly received favourable reviews at home and internationally. In 2005 he recorded a series of short programmes from Germany for BBC Radio 3 exploring J.S. Bach’s 260-mile journey on foot to Lübeck in 1705, broadcast as part of that network’s highly successful A Bach Christmas. More recent events have included recitals in Nuremberg, Paris (Notre Dame Cathedral), Sées (Normandy), Amsterdam, Hamburg and cathedrals and churches throughout the UK; an ninth “home” Three Choirs Festival, and children’s workshops in Hereford and Ludlow incorporating his own transcription of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. In 2022 he performed Book 2 of Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier in a series of piano recitals.

Hereford Cathedral’s “Father Willis” Organ is widely recognised to be one of the finest instruments in the UK, if not the world. Substantially dating from 1892, when the organ builder Henry Willis I was at the height of his powers, it incorporates around 4,000 pipes which range in size from under an inch long to 32 feet tall – the height of a London bus. The range and unique subtlety of its tone colours is used to great effect in accompaniments to the cathedral choir at the daily services to which all are welcome.

The next organ concert at Hereford Cathedral is Christmas Sparkle, a concert of seasonal favourites by Peter Dyke, on Saturday 29 November at 1.15 pm. Admission is free, with a retiring collection.