Current work:

Francesca now pursues a busy and varied freelance portfolio career, combining performing and teaching. The services she is able to offer include (but are not limited to):

• Organ solo performance, either in recital/concert or CD recordings

• Keyboard accompaniment (including organ, piano, and chamber organ/harpsichord continuo), ranging from individual instrumentalists and singers to small ensembles, choirs and orchestras

• Choral conducting (including chamber choirs and choral societies, both amateur and professional)

• Liturgical organ playing/conducting, including weddings and funerals

• Individual or group tuition (i.e. masterclasses) on a range of disciplines including organ, piano, music theory, choral conducting, keyboard skills, accompaniment

• Examining and adjudicating for exam-boards, music festivals and school competitions

  …. please get in touch regarding bookings for any of the above, or other musical requests you may have!

NEW CD AVAILABLE!

Francesca’s fourth solo organ CD, recorded on the organ at St Edmundsbury Cathedral, has just been released on the Priory Records label, featuring vibrant 20th and 21st-century works. Copies are available to purchase directly from Francesca, at a price of £10 (for collection in person or at a recital), or £12 via post to the UK (postage to other countries may vary). Copies can be signed or inscribed with a message on request. Please send a message via the Contact page if you would like to receive a copy!

Formative musical experience:

Born in Birmingham in 1982, Francesca Massey began her musical development as a pianist, violinist and singer.  Her desire to become a professional musician was kindled through her being a founder member of the City of Birmingham Symphony Youth Chorus, with whom she was privileged to perform regularly alongside the world’s leading orchestras and conductors in the UK’s finest concert halls, as well as in Vienna, Paris and at the Salzburg Festival.  Francesca was given solo roles in Henze’s The Raft of the Medusa under Sir Simon Rattle, and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel under Mark Elder.  She also had a small solo part in Benjamin Britten’s opera Death in Venice, appearing at both the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and The Royal Festival Hall, London with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Yan Pascal Tortelier (broadcast on BBC Radio 3), and recorded one of the solo roles in Britten’s opera The Little Sweep for commercial DVD with members of the CBSO.  As a teenager, Francesca was a member of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, and a violinist in the Dudley and Birmingham Schools’ Symphony Orchestras, as well as achieving much success in local piano competitions.   

Education:

Francesca was a Music Scholar at Edgbaston High School for Girls. She took up the organ aged 12, and started playing for services at St Thomas’s Church, Stourbridge, where she was Organ Scholar.  She subsequently took up a gap-year Organ Scholarship at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle (during which time she acted as Assistant Organist for one term and was present for the funeral of HRH Princess Margaret, the memorial service for HRH The Queen Mother, and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations).  During this year, Francesca gained all of the top prizes in the Fellowship Diploma of the Royal College of Organists.  She then completed an MA in Music at Cambridge University where she was Organ Scholar at Gonville and Caius College (acting as Precentor in the Lent Term of 2006) and later Assistant Organist at Great St Mary's Church.  A recipient of a number of prestigious awards (amongst them the WT Best Memorial Scholarship and Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, the Musicians Benevolent Fund’s Ian Fleming Award and an ABRSM Scholarship), she continued her studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, graduating with a double Distinction and winning the college’s Organ Prize, whilst also holding the Organ Scholarship at Manchester Cathedral. 

Her teachers included Jeremy Filsell, Kevin Bowyer, David Goode, Darius Battiwalla and Andrew Fletcher, and she also participated in masterclasses with others including Dame Gillian Weir, Harald Vogel, David Briggs, Peter Hurford and Naji Hakim.  She was the repetiteur for the Windsor and Eton Choral Society under Ralph Allwood, and the Birmingham Bach Choir under Paul Spicer, and also taught for Cambridge University Faculty of Music as a Supervisor in Keyboard Skills, Harmony, Counterpoint, Fugue and Tonal Composition. 

Professional career:

After graduating from music college, Francesca became Assistant Director of Music at Peterborough Cathedral, before moving to Durham Cathedral as Sub-Organist in 2011.  In 2019 she became Director of Music and Organist at Rochester Cathedral, where she successfully founded a newly-integrated mixed treble line, as well as new Sixth Form Choral and Organ Scholarships.  Francesca has broadcast extensively on radio and TV, toured the UK and abroad and made several recordings accompanying various choirs.    

Francesca performs regularly as a recitalist throughout the UK and abroad.  She has four critically-acclaimed solo organ CDs to her name (Carnival, Bravura!, The Forgotten Gem and The Complete Works of Maurice Duruflé ), all on the Priory Records label.  She is an experienced choral director of both amateur and professional choirs; in addition to the cathedral and college choirs with whom she has been associated she has directed the Durham Cathedral Consort of Singers, The Durham Singers, The St Peter’s Singers (Peterborough), Peterborough Cathedral Voluntary Choir and Caius College Chorus and Orchestra.  In January 2024 she became Musicial Director of Cranbrook Choral Society. She has performed with several leading orchestras and choirs as an accompanist, continuo player or pianist, amongst them The BBC Singers, His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts, Avison Ensemble, the Tallis Scholars, I Fagiolini, Royal Northern Sinfonia, English Chamber Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Oxford Bach Choir, Birmingham Bach Choir, ESO Choir, Charivari Agréable, Orchestra da Camera, the Orchestra of the Swan, Armonico Consort, Schwabinger Kantorie München, New Cambridge Singers, Cambridge University Baroque Ensemble and Orlando Chamber Choir.  She has also performed Poulenc’s Organ Concerto with the City of London Sinfonia and Stephen Layton. 

Francesca is actively engaged as an organ and piano teacher, in which capacity she has worked both privately and on behalf of Durham University, Creative Oundle for Organists and the RSCM. In 2021 she led a series of workshops and masterclasses for JAM on the Marsh alongside composer Paul Mealor, looking at organ composition, which led to the performance of three new world-premiers. Other recent work has included being on the examining-panel for the Royal College of Organists’ examinations and leading masterclasses for Pipeworks (Dublin), Beauty in Sound (YouTube) and the Jennifer Bate Organ Academy.        

Personal life:

Francesca lives in Rochester, Kent, with her husband, David Booer. David is a full-time qualified Actuary and professional Tenor (having been a Lay Clerk at Durham and Rochester Cathedrals). They are loving ‘dog-parents’ to their Cavapoo, Rusty, and enjoy long dog-walks, home-cooking and fine-dining, photography, movies, video games, exercising, all things animal-related, and spending time with friends and family.