Royal Albert Hall organist Anna Lapwood joins Bonobo on stage on final residency night: Watch
Bonobo’s five-night residency at London’s Royal Albert Hall ended with a special guest: organist Anna Lapwood.
Lapwood shared a clip of the performance from her perspective on TikTok, saying the unexpected collaboration happened when she was practising on the organ at Royal Albert Hall around 1 AM Friday, 20th May, before the final night of Bonobo’s run at the historic London venue. Then, “someone shouted ‘play the ‘Toccata’,” the classic Bach organ piece, and that someone was a member of Bonobo’s band.
“12 hours later they had written me an organ part,” Lapwood wrote. “18 hours later I was helping them close their show to an audience of 5,000.”
The rest of the video shows a beaming Lapwood performing the impromptu version of ‘Otomo’, a “total surprise” to the audience, as she puts it. She called it “one of the greatest nights of my life.” Watch her video below.
In the aftermath of the special finale, Lapwood has been sharing heartfelt messages about the night and what the response means to her. “Still can’t get over Friday. It feels like a dream, and I’m totally overwhelmed (in the best way) by the response,” she wrote on Instagram. “I’ve had messages from so many people asking about the instrument and some even asking how they can start lessons!
“Never let it be said that the organ is boring, dying or irrelevant,” Lapwood wrote. “It just needs us to fight for it.”
Bonobo, whose recent DJ Mag cover feature you can read here, cheered Lapwood on in the comments under her initial post on Instagram, “You’re a legend Anna! Best moment of my life.”
An accomplished musician, composer and presenter, Lapwood has seen great success on social media sharing behind-the-scenes, usually late-night moments like the Bonobo collaboration. Her other recent viral clip was about playing the ‘Interstellar’ theme for the Royal Albert Hall cleaning crew at 3 AM.
The excited response to Lapwood’s videos prompted Royal Albert Hall to share the full performance of ‘Otomo’ on their YouTube channel. Watch it below.
