Some moments arrive quietly, over a cup of coffee in a New York café. For Anna Lapwood, one of them came when a young girl named Katherine asked whether she might play “Concerning Hobbits” from The Lord of the Rings. It was a small request. It lit a spark that grew, note by note, into the largest transcription project of Lapwood’s career, and now into her new album, *Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost*, arriving on Friday, November 13, 2026 on Sony Music Masterworks.
It is a record that carries you off into worlds of fantastical characters, dark forests, looming mountains, and tempestuous seas. Lapwood has long been one of the most gifted artists of her generation, and she is famed for introducing the organ to millions of new listeners through her readings of both classical and contemporary works. This, her most ambitious album yet, takes on two of cinema’s most beloved scores, Howard Shore’s *The Lord of the Rings* and Hans Zimmer’s *Pirates of the Caribbean*. She reimagines both as major organ works and sets them inside the magnificent Steinmeyer organ at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway.
The first taste has already landed. Her single “One Day (Suite from Pirates of the Caribbean)” is available now, alongside the first two tracks from *The Lord of the Rings* Organ Symphony: “Prologue: One Ring to Rule Them All” and “The Shire/Concerning Hobbits”. On both, Lapwood sings in Elvish, lending the music a voice that feels pulled straight from Middle-earth. Elsewhere on the album, she joins the Nidaros Cathedral Girls’ Choir, conducted by Johanna Bjørkhaug, on “Rivendell” and “Song For Justice”.
Lapwood does not do things by halves, and she is the first to say so. “It has been the most extraordinary journey delving into JRR Tolkien’s world in more detail, and into Howard Shore’s incredible scores. I knew that if I was going to do it, I would need to go all in!” she says. Her Pirates of the Caribbean Suite, written a couple of years ago, had been the biggest and hardest transcription she had ever attempted, and she credits it with shaping what followed. “I feel like everything I learned from that informed The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony, which is by far the biggest project I’ve ever worked on and has completely transformed how I think about the organ. It has been such a beautiful process and has made me fall in love with the organ all over again!”
The work was painstaking. Lapwood transcribed everything by ear, and she invited fellow Lord of the Rings devotees to help choose which movements deserved a place, tracing Shore’s motivic development while keeping the story’s narrative arc clear. She also spoke with Howard Shore himself, who offered suggestions along the way. “Howard and his team have been so kind and generous with their time and support during this whole process, and I’m incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to ask their advice!” she says.
It is a fitting chapter for an artist who has built her reputation in concert halls around the world and has drawn a vast, devoted following online. Lapwood rose to fame on TikTok and now counts more than four million followers across all platforms. The press has taken notice. She has been hailed as a sensation and covered by *The Times*, *The Guardian*, *The Telegraph* and *The New York Times*, while *Tatler* has called her “the Taylor Swift of classical music.”
With *Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost*, Lapwood invites us to wander with her. She leads us through forests, over mountains and across stormy seas, all from the keyboard of a single, mighty organ.
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