Robert Sholl

Robert Sholl studied in Melbourne, Paris, and London, and teaches at The Royal Academy of Music and the University of West London. His has written extensively on twentieth-century music, including Olivier Messiaen: A Critical Biography (Reaktion, 2024) which was awarded a Certificate of Merit in the 2025 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in the category Best Historical Research in Recorded Classical, Messiaen in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2023) which received an honourable mention in the RMA/Cambridge University edited book prize, Messiaen Studies (Cambridge, 2007) and James MacMillan Studies, ed. with George Parsons (Cambridge, 2021), Contemporary Music and Spirituality ed. with Sander van Maas (Routledge, 2017), and The Feldenkrais Method in Creative Practice (Bloomsbury, 2021), and on musical improvisation to film (in Perspectives of New Music). In 2026-7 Robert played all of the organ works of Olivier Messiaen at Arundel Cathedral, and the complete Vierne symphonies, complete Duruflé organ works, and music by Tournemire at Arundel (with chamber music and songs) in 2021-22. He recorded improvisations to film on the organ and piano (on youtube), and a disc of improvisations, Les ombres du Fantôme (Divine Art, 2024). Robert has given recitals at the St John’s Smith Square, St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and twice at the Madeleine and at Notre-Dame de Paris.