Dr. Robert Pecksmith, ARCO
Robert Pecksmith is currently the Assistant Organist of Wakefield Cathedral. Previously, he was the Assistant Director of Music at St. Wilfrid's Church, the newly-formed York Oratory, from 2015 to 2020. In 2014/15 he served as the Assistant Organist at St. Paul's Bloor Street, the largest Anglican church in Toronto (Canada). In 2014, Robert graduated from the University of Oxford with a first-class degree in History, having been the organ scholar at Somerville College, Oxford, where he accompanied and occasionally directed the choir from 2011 until 2014.
Robert began his musical life aged 5 when he began learning the piano, achieving Grade 8 Distinction aged 13. He then decided to take up the organ, receiving lessons from Henry Fairs at the Birmingham Conservatoire for five years. During this time he regularly played for his parish church in Bournville and took part in masterclasses at Lincoln's Inn and St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham. Upon reaching Oxford, Robert received lessons from Stephen Farr as well as achieving his ARCO diploma, for which he also received the Sowerbutts Prize and Durrant Prize. He remains an active recitalist, and often performs in and around Yorkshire. Other solo recitals have been further afield, such as at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston, and on solo recital tours of Germany that included playing baroque Wagner and Silbermann organs as well as romantic instruments in Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Bavaria. His first commercial solo CD for the German label JUBAL was released in April 2015.
Robert began his musical life aged 5 when he began learning the piano, achieving Grade 8 Distinction aged 13. He then decided to take up the organ, receiving lessons from Henry Fairs at the Birmingham Conservatoire for five years. During this time he regularly played for his parish church in Bournville and took part in masterclasses at Lincoln's Inn and St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham. Upon reaching Oxford, Robert received lessons from Stephen Farr as well as achieving his ARCO diploma, for which he also received the Sowerbutts Prize and Durrant Prize. He remains an active recitalist, and often performs in and around Yorkshire. Other solo recitals have been further afield, such as at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston, and on solo recital tours of Germany that included playing baroque Wagner and Silbermann organs as well as romantic instruments in Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Bavaria. His first commercial solo CD for the German label JUBAL was released in April 2015.
