In 2024, Anna Lapwood made her Walt Disney Concert Hall debut with a program quite like this one, a mix of movie music and modern works. With roughly 700,000 followers on TikTok and an unofficial title from The New York Times as “the world’s most visible organist,” Lapwood used her internet fame to reach new audiences, introduce them to the organ, and push beyond the boundaries of the classical world.

Now, two years later, Lapwood continues to live up to her “title,” more than doubling her following on every social media platform and becoming what she calls “the most unbound, unruled version of myself.”

She returns to the Hall eager to reintroduce herself to the Los Angeles crowd, opening her recital with Hans Zimmer’s methodical and propulsive “Chevaliers de Sangreal” from the 2006 mystery thriller The Da Vinci Code. Arriving near the end of the movie, the piece heightens the intensity as the main characters race to unravel a series of hidden clues left in famous artworks. Considering the movie a formative part of her childhood, Lapwood said, “I vividly remember watching the film for the first time with my family, hearing the music and feeling an incredible emotional response to it. I wanted to work out how the music worked, so I sat in bed with a torch and manuscript paper, writing out the harmony, and trying to understand how Hans Zimmer achieved such emotion through repetition and orchestration. Every time I play this, I get reminded of the goose bumps I felt hearing it for the first time.”

First impressions are everything for Lapwood. They can set the tone for what’s to come. Disney’s 1996 The Hunchback of Notre Dame, with a score by Alan Menken, introduces Quasimodo with an ominous yet exhilarating musical number that details the peculiar character and the massive, dark cathedral where he resides. About her arrangement of “The Bells of Notre Dame,” Lapwood said, “I’ve tried to capture as much of the original orchestration as possible, because I think that does so much to tell the story; this does mean you need a relatively large organ with at least three manuals!” The Hall’s organ has four manuals and 6,134 pipes, making it more than qualified for music that calls for such power.

Lapwood puts the instrument to the test with The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony, her new arrangement of Howard Shore’s original scores. A young fan from New York planted the first seed for the symphony, telling Lapwood that her favorite piece was “Concerning Hobbits,” because it’s addicting “like catnip.” That brief encounter prompted Lapwood to make a four-hour playlist of LOTR songs, whittle it down to 12 movements and a prologue, and transcribe the whole thing by ear across many late nights and international plane rides.

“What has been really amazing is getting to work with Howard Shore, [who has been] really, really generous.… He and his team went over it, note by note, checking everything against their scores,” Lapwood said. “Those films have gained such beautiful popularity because you feel the love in every moment. I hope that people might feel the love in the music from me as well.”

After intermission, Lapwood awakens the Force with John Williams’ “Duel of the Fates.” First heard in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, the piece underscores an epic battle scene with loud, slashing lightsabers. For Lapwood, the hardest part isn’t playing the notes, she says, it’s coordinating the registers: “The feet are playing constant quavers, and both hands have constant melodic ideas, so you only have a split second to press the buttons each time…and the buttons are in a different place on every organ.”

Over the years, Lapwood has traveled the world, challenging her skills on different organs, learning about herself as a musician, and rediscovering that you never know where life will take you. Her 2025 album Firedove explores similar themes of spreading wings and taking off, best showcased in Rachel Portman’s Flight, a graceful depiction of soaring birds. It pairs thematically with Olivia Belli’s Limina Luminis (Threshold of Light), a vortex-like work inspired by the feeling of astonishment astronauts get when seeing the Earth from outer space.

Sea shanties and swashbuckling themes close out the recital as Lapwood performs Hans Zimmer’s Pirates of the Caribbean Suite, a medley of the haunting “Hoist the Colours,” adventurous “Jack Sparrow,” determined “One Day,” and the bold and thrilling “Drink Up Me Hearties Yo Ho.” The Pirates Suite is one of her most intricate and intense arrangements. Lapwood says, “There are moments where I’m doing five melodies at once—right hand, left hand, right foot, left foot, and thumbs down on the bottom keyboard! It pushes you as far as you can—as far as I can push myself at the moment, at least.”

—Piper Starnes