Nicolas Kynaston

Nicolas Kynaston (1941-2025) was a founder-member of the AIOA. Born in Devonshire of a Catholic family, he became a Westminster Cathedral Chorister, beginning his organ studies with George Malcolm and then at Downside School. At the age of fifteen he travelled to Italy on a scholarship to study with Fernando Germani at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana and then the Rome Conservatorio. Upon his return to England, Kynaston studied with Ralph Downes at the Royal College of Music. His first post was as organist of Westminster Cathedral, to which he was appointed at the age of nineteen. In 1971, he resigned in order to pursue his flourishing concert career, which saw him give recitals in every major concert hall in the United Kingdom and nearly every country in Europe.

Kynaston also played in Barbados, Nassau, Ankara, Istanbul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Korea, and the Philippines and undertook six coast-to-coast tours of North America. He served on the juries of a number of major organ competitions, including those in Southport, St Albans and London, and was the first English organist to be invited to be on the jury of the Grand Prix de Chartres. Kynaston's extensive discography was critically acclaimed, with discs receiving Best Solo Instrumental Record of the Year from the Music Trades Association and the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis for his recording in Germany of Vierne’s Sixth Symphony.

Nicolas taught at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and gave numerous masterclasses overseas. He was in demand for advice about new organs, acting for a period also as a tonal adviser for J.W. Walker Ltd. He was the consultant for the 1993 Klais organ in the Megaron (the principal concert hall in Athens) where he then played and taught for some years, at the same time being an organ professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In England he was consultant for the rebuilt organs at Bath Abbey, Gonville & Caius College Cambridge, Rugby School, University College School, London, All Saints' church Northampton and Christchurch Priory, among others.