CLASSICAL Organ Festival/ St Saviour's, Oxton.

Byline: JOE RILEY

TRULY incredible: a world-class music event at a Wirral parish church - and with some not coincidental local talent.

The organ festival put together by Shean Bowers, dynamic music director at St Saviour''s, Oxton, is better than any assembled by a British cathedral this season, with the exception of Westminster.

Having kicked off with a heavyweight "battle" between the globally touring American sensation Carlo Curley (who brought his own 20-speaker touring instrument) and Liverpool Cathedral''s Ian Tracey (on the church organ), the show continues on November 21 with another Merseyside phenomenon, Kirkbyborn Stephen Disley, recently described in The Times as "the best organist in London".

Assembling such a programme, which also includes a transatlantic visit by the multitalented John Scott, former organist of St Paul's Cathedral, is a phenomenal achievement, given the sponsorship needs.

The near capacity launch audience dispels the view that organ concerts are for a few aficionados huddled in a foggy cloistered corner.

Not least, of course, was the sheer showmanship and charm of Curley, who could talk underwater.

The choices included a hefty dollop of Handel, to mark the 250th anniversary of the composer''s death, plus some laid back soft-centre options from Curley, playing in white socks with no shoes, and two virtuosic outbursts from Tracey, to make him, by a whisker, man of the match.

The touring console made an altogether more satisfying sound than the church's somewhat rasping and brittle pipe organ, although as parish organs go, this fourmanual beast is in the higher league.

JOE RILEY