Matthew Hynes B.A. (Hons), Cert PGS (RSAMD)

Matthew has pursued a dual career: in organ building - embracing practical experience in the conservation and restoration of instruments by Hill, Lewis, Forster & Andrews, and Willis among numerous established builders - and in church music. He studied organ with Roger Bryan in Lincoln, and latterly with Dr George McPhee at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, graduating in 1994.

He relinquishing full-time organ building (in both his native Yorkshire and subsequently in Scotland) in 2014 after over two decades. Now, his schedule comprises professional consultancy work and, as Burgh Organist at Ayr Town Hall, curatorial and outreach responsibilities for an unaltered 1904 instrument by Lewis & Co. He has been Director of Music at Ayr St Columba parish church since 2007 and is a visiting peripatetic tutor at Wellington School.

As Curator of the 1876 Willis organ in Cottier’s Theatre Glasgow, Matthew was involved as a consultant for the landmark restoration of this instrument, completed in 2014. Recent and ongoing consultancy projects include the restorations of instruments by Hill (1865), Lewis (instruments of 1868 and 1903), Willis (instruments of 1896, 1902 and 1913 provenance) and Harrison & Harrison (1903 and 1914).

In maintaining a continuing practical interest in pipe organ conservation, Matthew is a past chairman of the Scottish Historic Organs Trust, and has served as an organ advisor for the Church of Scotland’s Committee for Art and Architecture, covering Glasgow and South West Scotland, since 2005. In the sphere of research and writing, his contributions have been published in Choir & Organ magazine (Rhinegold Publications) as a series of articles surveying organs in Scottish country houses.

Since 2014, he has served on the assessment panel of the Historic Organ Listing Scheme for the British Institute of Organ Studies (BIOS).