A British organist whose playing turned heads at one of London's most famous concert halls is set to take the stage at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts on Friday night. Anna Lapwood, who holds the distinction of being the Royal Albert Hall's first official organist, brings her genre-blending style to Kansas City at 7 p.m.
According to the venue's ticket listing on tickets.kauffmancenter.org, Lapwood's resume includes an MBE appointment from the 2024 New Year's Honours list and a spot on the 2025 Sunday Times Young Power List. Her profile has grown well beyond classical music circles, with the Guardian noting she had more than 2 million social media followers at the time of a 2025 review that also confirmed her status as the Royal Albert Hall's first-ever official organist.
The Moment That Made Her Go Viral
Lapwood's crossover appeal was on full display during a performance with pop singer Raye at the Royal Albert Hall, where she played Felix Mendelssohn's Wedding March as an introduction before Raye launched into her song Where Is My Husband!, according to MusicRadar. The same performance included Lapwood weaving organ elements into Raye's track Click Clack Symphony, the outlet reported.
The moment clearly affected Lapwood herself. “I literally had tears streaming down my face while I was playing this,” she said, according to MusicRadar's account of the show. It is the kind of unexpected emotional beat that has become something of a signature for an organist willing to pair centuries-old instruments with contemporary pop.
Packing Houses From Dallas to Kansas City
Lapwood's Kansas City stop follows a string of sold-out shows elsewhere in the country. A review in the Dallas Morning News described her Sunday afternoon recital at the Meyerson Symphony Center as sold out, with a second performance that Thursday night also reported to have sold every seat. The review called Lapwood an artist who “packs major venues on both sides of the Atlantic.”
That Dallas Symphony Orchestra program leaned into the same mix of high and low culture that has defined her career, featuring her own arrangements of music from The Da Vinci Code and Pirates of the Caribbean, both composed by Hans Zimmer, along with selections from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, per the same review. It is a formula that seems to travel well, whether the room is a Texas symphony hall or a London arena built for a pop star's encore.
Kansas City audiences hoping to catch Friday's performance for themselves can check the Kansas City Star, which first reported on Lapwood's upcoming Kauffman Center appearance, for additional details on the show.
