Ross-on-Wye teenager, Laurence John, who is the organist at St Mary’s Parish Church, has seen his dream plans for his gap year come true.

Laurence, who is 18, has been selected as Hereford Cathedral’s organ scholar for 2016-17.

Laurence will join the Cathedral’s music department on September 1st, exactly one year after becoming organist at St Mary’s.

He said: “A number of cathedrals were suggested to me when it was time for me to apply for a gap year organ scholarship, but Hereford was always my first choice.

“The cathedral is recognised all over the world for the extraordinarily high quality of its choral and organ music. To be entrusted to help uphold this international reputation for excellence is the biggest honour and challenge of my career.”

To celebrate his new appointment, and to commemorate his time at St. Mary’s, he will be giving a gala organ concert in the church on Sunday, July 17th at 3pm. Admission is free.

His programme will include serious and light works by some of the world’s greatest composers, including Bach, Elgar and Mendelssohn.

It was only five years ago that Laurence began organ lessons with a Ross-on-Wye based tutor, Rob Lucas.

Yet in this relatively short time he has earned a reputation as one of the finest young classical organists in Britain.

For the past two years he has been a music scholar at Hereford Cathedral School where he has continued his organ studies under Peter Dyke, the cathedral’s assistant director of music who recently gave a recital at Notre Dame Cathedral.

The springboard to Laurence’s meteoric rise to national prominence was the 2014 Oundle Summer School for Organists, attended by some of the most talented young musicians from all over Europe. His sublime playing during the week won him a prestigious recital award.

Since then he has achieved grade eight distinctions as an organist and pianist, has given organ recitals at Hereford Cathedral and Dore Abbey, and accompanied Hereford Cathedral School’s Cantabile Girls Choir which won BBC Television’s Song of Praise Choir of the Year competition.

In March, as an organ soloist, he performed Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No.3 with members of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Hereford Cathedral. In August he will be repeating the work with an international summer youth orchestra at Ludlow and Leominster.