You have had a long career in church music, winning great distinction both as organist and choir director, and now you are primarily known world-wide as a composer. Take us back to the beginning – when and how did your commitment to music begin? I grew up in a small country town, beginning piano lessons aged four. When I was 14, I moved to a country secondary school where I sang in the local cathedral choir. It was there that I first become obsessed with the organ and choirs. I trained as a...

What prompted you to start learning the organ? During the 1980s I was studying piano at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in Manchester and at that point had not really heard the organ. When I was growing up, there was a harmonium, not an organ, in my church, and the same piece was played during Communion every single week… I can still hear it in my head now! Anyway, I became friends with some of the organists at college and got to hear all the pieces they were learning. I soon...

Shanna, tell us about your life in music I am Organist at St Botolph without Aldgate, London, and Assistant Organist at Selwyn College, Cambridge. I also work as a freelance organist for services, concerts and recitals, and as a teacher: among other things, supervising Counterpoint and Fugue for Cambridge University. I teach piano and organ privately, and do a few other musical bits and pieces. That sounds plenty for one person! Yet I understand you also work for the Royal Society of...