Fantastic Organ Recital by Andrew Shenton on the amazing organ built by Weston organ company, Hook and Hastings

St. Peter's Music Director Andrew Shenton, organ www.andrewshenton.com

Music by Franck, Leighton, Lefébure-Wély and others

Cathedral of the Holy Cross
1400 Washington St in the historic South End of Boston
Admission free

Founded in Boston in 1827, Hook and Hastings moved to Weston, Massachusetts in 1875. In its 108 years of operation, E. and G.G. Hook and Hastings produced and estimated 2,614 organs ranging is size from eight to eighty feet for locations throughout the U.S.  These included organs for First Parish and St. Peter's Church in Weston, Weston College, Wellesley College, the College of Music in Wellesley, and the Unitarian Church in Wellesley Hills.

Hook and Hastings was the largest industry in Weston and produced an organ a week in its huge, wooden factory on Viles Street, just north of the railroad tracts. The company closed in 1935, a victim of the Depression and the building was demolished in 1936.

The company's organs ranged in size from eight to eighty feet and were shipped all over the country.

The Hook & Hastings organ factory was by far the largest industry in Weston, MA. The huge wooden building (above) stood on Viles Street, just north of the railroad tracks, from the late 1880s until it was demolished in 1936. The company's organs ranged in size from eight to eighty feet and were shipped all over the country.

St. Peter's Music Director Andrew Shenton was born in England. His first professional music training was at The Royal College of Music in London, where he studied under a scholarship from The Royal College of Organists. While at the RCM he read for a B.Mus. degree at London University and was an organ scholar at St. Paul's Cathedral. In 1991 Andrew Shenton moved to the US to study for a Master's degree at the Institute for Sacred Music, Worship and the Arts at Yale University and then for a Ph.D. in musicology at Harvard University. He currently serves on the faculty of Boston University.

Recently he has given recitals in such venues as King's College, Cambridge, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, London, St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (New York debut), and Washington National Cathedral. He has toured extensively in Europe and the US as a conductor, recitalist and clinician, and his two solo organ recordings have received international acclaim.