Alexander Woodrow is the Organist & Director of Music at Leeds Minster, appointed in 2020, and leads a busy professional life as a choral director, organ recitalist and teacher.
He is Director of Music for two long-established chamber choirs (St Peter’s Singers of Leeds, and the Huddersfield Singers), and Accompanist to the Yorkshire Philharmonic Choir.
At Leeds Minster, he is responsible for the leadership of a vibrant Music Department, directing the Choir of Leeds Minster in three choral services each week, as well as occasional tours, recordings and broadcasts. He founded and continues to support the Children’s Choir at the Minster which saw the restoration of children singing at the church after a decade’s abeyance. He also curates the Organ Recital series at Leeds Minster, featuring the church’s famous Harrison & Harrison organ in concert each week.
He directed the Choir of Leeds Minster for the live BBC1 Easter Day broadcast in 2022. More recently, he directed the Leeds Minster Choir and St Peter’s Singers of Leeds in a recording of Sacred Choral and Organ Music by William Lloyd Webber (2025), including the first commercial recording of his cantata ‘The Saviour’, recorded by Priory Records. On this disc, Alex also appeared as solo organist in the set of Six Interludes on Passion Hymns. Passionate about developing promising young talent, in July 2026 he walked 104 miles along the White Rose Way from Leeds to Scarborough, over six days, playing a daily organ recital along the way, in order to sustain the Minster’s Choral Scholarship programme, one of the most highly regarded choral programmes for aspiring young singers in any parish church in the country.
Alex’s musical career has encompassed positions at Guildford Cathedral, St Albans Cathedral, and Hexham Abbey, and between 2012 and 2016 he served as the youngest cathedral organist in the country, working as the Organist & Director of Music at Bradford Cathedral. During that time he worked hard to reverse the fortunes of the music department there, launching a major organ appeal, and re-establishing independent top lines of boys and girls, alongside a Choral Scholarship programme.
A commitment to teaching has equally been a focus over the years, at Mowden Hall School, Bradford Grammar School, and at Solihull School, where Alex worked as the Head of Choral Music on the full-time teaching staff.
Alex read Music as Organ Scholar and Academic Exhibitioner at Magdalene College, Cambridge, studying with Anne Page. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists at the age of 19, winning first prizes in all categories, including the Limpus Prize. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College London, and a recipient of the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
Alex has regularly broadcast on BBC Radio and Television with the Choir of Bradford Cathedral, Solihull School Chapel Choir and the Choir of Leeds Minster. He has been Organist to five programmes of BBC Songs of Praise.
Alex is an experienced and supportive teacher, and among his pupils’ achievements are Oxbridge and cathedral organ scholarship successes, as well as a full house of distinctions at ABRSM Grade 8 piano and organ. A good number of his former pupils and choristers are now proficient and prominent professional musicians in their own right.
Alex is also active as an organ recitalist across the UK, and has played solo concerts at York Minster, St John’s and King’s Colleges, Cambridge, and at Westminster Abbey. 2026 recitals included Beverley and Halifax Minsters, St Chad’s Church, Shrewsbury, Hexham Abbey and Rochdale Town Hall, while 2027 sees a return to play at Bradford Cathedral, as well as a visit to Leeds’ twin city, Dortmund, to play a recital at the Reinoldikirche in August 2027.
