Thomas Blew achieves extraordinary musical success
We are extremely proud to share the extraordinary musical achievements of Thomas Blew who recently undertook the ARCO (Associate of the Royal College of Organists) examination.
Not only did Thomas achieve a pass in the exam overall, but he was also awarded the Sowerbutts Prize and Durrant Prize.
The RCO's Press Release can be read here: RCO News: RCO announces 2025 summer examination results
Associateship of the College indicates a standard of professional competency in organ playing technique, essential keyboard skills, and interpretative understanding. It also indicates accuracy in aural perception and fluency in those written disciplines (standard stylistic techniques and analysis of performance and historical issues in relation to organ repertoire) which support practical musicianship.
To add a little context, the majority of organists who pass the ARCO are organ scholars at university, so to pass the exam in Year 12 is a wonderful achievement, and to be awarded overall prizes makes it more so. Roughly 40-50 awards of ARCO are achieved annually (worldwide), and although the exam is modular, and sections can be re-taken across a four-year period, to be awarded a prize, the entire exam must be passed in a single session, achieving at least the college's stated minimum mark.
Thomas is the first student, at least 27 years at the school, who has achieved this award whilst studying at St. Olave's.
Thomas, along with Jenny Wells from last year's Year 13, have been members of the National Youth Orchestra this season - in their most recent concert tour, the orchestra performed "The Planets" by Gustav Holst, amongst other works. Jenny has been co-leading the orchestra for the season, with Thomas in the viola section - but he auditioned for and was successful in being asked to perform the organ part of "The Planets" for the 4 concerts in the tour - at Birmingham, Aldeburgh and two concerts in the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.
One of the Proms concerts is due to be broadcast in full on BBC2 on Saturday 6 September.
With an ever-increasing list of organ students, we hope that their achievements provide inspiration for our younger learners.
It goes without saying that the St. Olave's community is immensely proud of Thomas.
Further details can be found on the RCO website, if you want to explore the complexities of the diploma:
