‘TikTok organist’ urges her classical musician peers to follow Taylor Swift

A trailblazing classical musician has said her contemporaries should copy Taylor Swift by encouraging fans to film performances.

Organist Anna Lapwood, 28, has urged her classical musician peers not to be “self-conscious” and to take inspiration from one of the world’s biggest popstars by recording and sharing shows online.

Discussing her solo performance at last year’s Proms, Ms Lapwood told BBC Music Magazine: “One of my favourite things was that over the next week I was tagged in hundreds of videos and stories.

“Getting to see the perspective of people in the crowd was intensely moving, and it created this little community.

“In the same way that I haven’t been to the Taylor Swift Eras tour, and yet I feel like I know what happens on it because I’ve seen so many viral fan videos, I think the same can be true of our concerts.”

Her comments come after the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra faced a backlash from musicians earlier this month after it allowed members of the audience to film their performances on phones.

They said that younger concert-goers could not be expected to play by the “old rules” of no filming, and Ms Lapwood - herself a TikTok sensation - appeared to agree.

She has now said that an online presence and classical musical do not need to be “mutually exclusive”.

Ms Lapwood, who became the youngest-ever Director of Music at an Oxbridge college in 2016, taking up the post at Cambridge aged 21, has more than 24 million likes and 744,000 followers on the video-sharing app. 

“Part of the secret to online success lies in putting a face to a name,” she added.

“People are used to connecting with music via the person making it. If you look at the pop world, people are fans of the artist.

“They tend to stick with the artist as they go through all different shifts in musical style, trying out new things and experimenting.”

The young organist is the Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, and was the first woman to be awarded an organ scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford University, in the college’s 560-year history. 

She was named associate artist of the Royal Albert Hall at 27, regularly shares her overnight practice sessions - midnight to 6am is when the busy concert hall is available - on social media.

One particularly memorable night-time encounter - with the British DJ and producer Bonobo’s crew - led to an unexpected cameo in the next night’s concert. 

A video of Lapwood’s performance to a packed electronic music audience went viral, racking up more than five million views online. 

“It was the best concert experience of my life. Everyone in the room was in this trancelike state together. I’m still getting ­people coming to my concerts because of that one gig.”

Ms Lapwood explained that “we’re a little bit more self-conscious in the classical world,” but added that having an online presence is a “fundamental way to generate a sense of community around performances and online events.”

She continued: “We are the vehicle for music to travel through. I don’t think those have to be mutually exclusive. At the heart of almost all my videos is the concept of me as a human being.

“Whether that’s people seeing my reactions in real time to performing a mash-up with an audience of 5,000 people, or whether it’s what it’s actually like to do an overnight rehearsal, or the challenges of playing an organ with a really awkward pedalboard.”

She admitted that she has grown up as part of a generation who use social media so is “very used to the idea,” but explained that the virality element and scale of TikTok “surprised” her.

“There’s potential to reach young people just where they are spending their time, and to say, ‘You know what, I love this thing. you might love it too. Come along for the ride and let’s see what happens,’” she said.