Joseph Nolan

Born in Hull on May 3, 1974, British organist Joseph Nolan trained at the Royal College of Music in London under Richard Popplewell, where he earned both a prize for most promising student and first-class honors in his graduating recital. A Royal Philharmonic Society grant then enabled further study with Dame Gillian Weir. His early career centered on the Chapel Royal at St. James’s Palace, whose duties included regular appearances at Buckingham Palace; while there he presented the inaugural recital on the refurbished Ballroom organ and became the first musician to record the instrument. In 2008 he relocated to Perth to join the music staff of St. George’s Cathedral, and he has since maintained an active solo and orchestral schedule in both Britain and Australia, appearing alone at the Sydney Opera House and with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra as well as, in 2018, performing Poulenc’s organ concerto with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra at Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Concert Hall.

After early releases on the Herald and ASV labels, Nolan moved to Signum Classics in 2008 with a recording devoted to the Buckingham Palace Ballroom organ. The following year he documented the organ of Paris’s St. Sulpice, inaugurating a sustained focus on French repertoire. Between 2012 and 2014 he issued a complete, critically praised cycle of the organ symphonies of Charles-Marie Widor; a subsequent album of additional Widor works was captured at St. Sernin in Toulouse and St. François de Sales in Lyon. In June 2017 he presented all ten Widor symphonies across seven consecutive days in Melbourne. His 2018 release Midnight at St. Etienne du Mont drew partial inspiration from Woody Allen’s film Midnight in Paris.

France appointed Nolan Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2016 in recognition of his advocacy for its organ literature, and he acquired Australian citizenship in 2012.