TikTok organist Anna Lapwood tells Princess Anne she was once told to 'play more like a man'

An organist, conductor and TikTok star told the Princess Royal she was once told to "play more like a man".

Anna Lapwood, who was made an MBE in the New Year Honours, gained fame on TikTok after videos of her attracted 25 million likes.

She opened up about being a young woman in a previously male-dominated world.

She told Princess Anne at an investiture at Windsor on Wednesday: “I’ve definitely, over the course of my career, had moments of being told to play more like a man, or whatever it is.

“And I’m just basically trying to help create a world where that kind of comment just wouldn’t be let go.”

She also said: “As a woman in music, and a young woman in music, there can be this thing the whole time where you feel as if ‘am I doing things right?’”

She added: “And it feels like this little moment of saying, you have done something right, which might sound minor but actually feels like a huge privilege.”

She said: “(We spoke) about how important it is to give them a space and say ‘You are so welcome here’, particularly with the previously male-dominated worlds, like the organ world.”

Ms Lapwood also encouraged Anne to play the castle’s organ: “I said ‘Have you ever had to go on the organ?’

"And she said ‘No, I haven’t, I think it’s a bit late’.

“And I was like ‘Oh, I think you can I think you could do it, you should do it’.”

Ms Lapwood said being made an MBE was a moment of “public recognition” for the organ.

“I feel like it’s this really important moment of recognition, particularly with the organ.

“I feel like the organ is one of those instruments that can get pushed to one side, but then, actually, no this has been publicly recognised.

Ms Lapwood, who is also director of music at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and established a girls’ choir at the college, said she was travelling straight back from the investiture to do a choir rehearsal in her outfit.

She said: “I’m going straight back to a girls’ choir rehearsal, literally in this dress, going straight like that.

“And I have moments where I’m like, oh, I’m so tired, do I want to do a rehearsal? And then the joy you get from watching young people make music that never leaves you.”

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