Ian Carson

Composer, Presenter, Pioneer

About

Biography

Ian became a boy chorister in the village church at Wolvercote, Oxford, maybe to earn a shilling or so per service. It was the school/choirmaster who encouraged Ian to play something on the organ. *

Singing lessons to help his asthmatic breathing coincided with the inception of day-boy choristers at Magdalen College, and he was duly metamorphosed by his gown and mortar board. When his legs could reach the pedals, Ian started organ lessons with organ scholar Dudley Moore, the first of three distinguished teachers, which led to him gaining an Organ Scholarship to Selwyn College Cambridge.

After 21 years of Oxbridge, when he yearned for a different life, he had a conversation with tutor David Harrison’s wife Sheila, a former BBC employee, who ‘sold’ her late employer to him. Thus following an interview in a Cambridge hotel bedroom from a Mr Moriarty Ian became a Studio Manager, a very practical apprenticeship to Production.

Within a short time he was working in BBC television Music & Arts, mainly with the adventurous and contemporary music champion director Barrie Gavin on some groundbreaking programmes. Fashions then changed so Ian pursued his production ambitions, making UK publicity films at the Central Office of Information, before gaining his final BBC post as Producer Network Music Programmes based in Bristol, where he was initially Director of Studies for the Academy of the BBC training orchestra, later Editor of Organ and Choral music on Radio 3, and pioneer in ‘drivetime’ programmes.

BBC reorganisation prompted his early retirement, but he has worked continually since, as writer, organist, director, presenter and composer.

He is married to violinist Mary (ex-Liverpool Phil), with family Aaron, Amy and Jessica. Ian & Mary have lived in Taunton for nearly 30 years.

*Burgmüller, Ballade for piano

Screen Credits

Musicamera

Scenario (realisation of Mussorsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in contemporary filmic images. LSO(?) James Loughran. Directed by Barrie Gavin.

Research

Music Now (magazine, John Drummond)

Assistant Producer

Workshop series
The New Rhythm of Music (Bartok/Stravinsky)
The Eccentrics (Ives/Varèse) – both (with Boulez) directed by Barrie Gavin
Nielsen (with Horenstein) directed by Barrie Gavin.
Beethoven (three 1-hour documentaries for the 200th anniversary of his birth in 1970) Script by HC Robbins Landon, directed by Barrie Gavin

ALBUMS

Featured Album

The Mass That Dances

Ian’s 2026 album release

The Mass That Dances

Ian Carson’s The Mass That Dances brings a fresh and lively vitality to sacred choral music, weaving echoes of popular dance rhythms ancient and contemporary, taking in threads of Bach, Brubeck and plainsong in creating the unified fabric of a Communion setting.

Recorded by The Echoing Air conducted by Andrea Brown with organist Stephen Tanner, the album also features a selection of Carson’s inventive anthems and hymn tunes which offer novel perspectives to the enrichment of worship.

“There is much imagination at work in Ian Carson’s music, and he is lucky to have such excellent, committed performers, all captured in a fine recording by producer George Richford and engineer Adaq Khan.”
Review by Colin Clarke, November/December 2026 edition of Fanfare

“Carson’s diversified, listener-friendly approach manifests itself in the several brief choral/organ works that complete the recording. Use of modal and chromatic writing evokes both the old and new. The occasional addition of instruments (oboe, violins, saxophone, handbells) pleasingly enhances the sonic palette. There is an infectious energy and optimism that inhabits both Carson’s music and the performances. The Echoing Air, an ensemble based in Somerset, sings with affecting beauty, lovely diction, and keen involvement. The recording, made at St. Peter’s Church, The Lawn, Burdleigh Salterton, is excellent: rich, detailed, and not overly resonant. A lovely disc; recommended.”
Review by Ken Meltzer, November/December 2026 edition of Fanfare

Hear the full album on Carson Records.

MUSIC

Music

Albums

Ian contributed to several releases from Salisbury Cathedral Choir and the Bristol-based singers and musicians of Christ Church Clifton in the 1980s. Click below for details.

The Mighty Voice

For All He Gives us

SoundCloud Recordings

Recordings on SoundCloud by Ian and Mary Carson.

Sample track 1: Janacek. The Madonna Of Frydek

Leoš Janáček arr. Ian Carson.

Organ arrangement by Ian Carson from the piece in the collection of piano pieces On an overgrown path, some of which may be from organ or harmonium originals. Played on pipe organ at Taunton Deane Crematorium, the work is a portrayal of a procession to a revered statue of the Madonna, in a town close to where Janáček grew up in Eastern Czechia.

Sample track 2: Fanfare from Sinfonietta

Leoš Janáček arr. Dom Andrew Moore. Music © Kevin Mayhew 1994

Played on Father Willis organ, Taunton Minster. Ian has a memory of stopping at a carp pond near a village somewhere in the Czech countryside on a summer Sunday afternoon, and discovering the local brass band rehearsing in the open air. Such bands are a major feature of Czech musical life. When Janáček wrote his Sinfonietta in celebration of his country’s (sadly short-lived) independence in the 1920s, he scored the first movement for ‘9 Trumpets, 3 F Trumpets, 2 Bass Trumpets, 4 Horns, 4 Trombones, 2 Tenor Tubas, 1 Bass Tuba’ and Tympani. Andrew Moore spent some years in holy orders at Downside Abbey in Somerset, where the Compton organ including a Bombarde manual would have rivalled the original scoring.

Discogs Profile

See more of Ian’s work on Discogs.

RADIO

Radio

Presenter on BBC Radio 3

Ian presented several programmes for BBC Radio 3, most notably the Father Willis In Devon and Tournemire series (below).

Father Willis In Devon

Programme 1: Great Torrington Parish Church. 25th May 1992

John Bishop plays organ by Father Willis in Devon, introduced by Ian Carson.

C.M. Widor- Symphony No. 2 in D

Programme 2: Totnes Parish Church. 1st June 1992.

John Bishop plays organ by Father Willis in Devon, introduced by Ian Carson.

Felix Mendelssohn – Prelude & Fugue in D minor, Op. 37, No. 3
Felix Mendlessohn – Andante with Variations
Felix Mendelssohn – Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 65

Tournemire

A series of four BBC Radio 3 programmes dedicated to Charles Tournemire — featuring Jane Watts playing the historic Cavaillé-Coll organ at the Basilica of Ste Clotilde, Paris — was originally broadcast weekly between 8 November and 29 November 1989.