This Friday at 7pm, we’re pleased to be showing Peter Pan (1924) on the big screen. Juice and popcorn included. Aaron Hawthorn will accompany on our mighty church organ. Tickets/entry £10/£5. All welcome for this fantastic movie. 

Biography

Aaron is a freelance musician based in Lanarkshire, Scotland (UK) and has a Master of Arts (with Honours) degree from the University of Glasgow. Aaron frequently performs recitals, concerts and silent film accompaniments across the UK as well as in mainland Europe and the USA.

After starting his career as an organist in Motherwell Cathedral, Aaron went on to be the principal organist at St Bride’s Roman Catholic Church, Cambuslang for five years and after a family trip to the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool in his early teens, discovered his love for theatre/cinema organs.

Following his 2019 performance at the American Theatre Organ Society’s annual convention in Rochester, New York, Aaron received the ‘ultimate honour’ for a young organist by winning the international Young Theatre Organist competition, having won the UK title two years before. Only a few months later, Aaron was awarded the Ian Sutherland Award by the Cinema Organ Society, an award given “directly to a player who displays outstanding talent and promise as a theatre organist.” Aaron has been active as a committee member for the Cinema Organ Society and the Scottish Cinema Organ Trust.

Also acclaimed as a choral conductor, Aaron has conducted various ensembles, including a three-year reign with the University of Glasgow Chamber Choir. He spends a large proportion of his week working as an arts facilitator and practitioner for North Lanarkshire Arts, a role in which he works with community groups, including youth and adult choirs, dementia-friendly sessions and all-ability arts projects.

Throughout the Autumn of 2021, Aaron joined a soprano on a UK tour featuring their semi-improvised accompaniment to the 1925 silent horror, The Phantom of the Opera. Their performances have been critically acclaimed and the shows successfully engaged new audiences with the worlds of silent film and pipe organs. He is embarking on another silent film tour in Autumn of 2022 with Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922).

Aaron is a house organist at Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow, where he plays for the daily organ recital series, and makes regular appearances playing the Compton Cinema Organ at Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life, Coatbridge and the 3/21 Wurlitzer organ of Pollokshaws Burgh Hall, Glasgow.