The Choir

Belphil - I think Belfast is your stamping ground? We had a choir from there at Winchester yesterday, Melisma. Led by Philip Stopford ex Chester Cath. Only 8 of them but what a sound! Really impressed. Do you know them? Hope we get them back again when our choir is on holiday.

Best. Liz

Morning Phil! Should certainly be around then, 'If I'm spared' as they say! Or unless the clergy have excommunicated me beforehand ...

Mellisma were absolutely superb. I wish I could sing like that. Made me feel like hanging up my larynx with immediate effect! I'll look out for the new cd.

You'll love Winchester. The city is lovely anyway and so full of history and the Cathedral is simply stunning. I count myself as intensely privileged to be able to go there to worship and listen and to have the chances to sing there is something which never fails to leave me utterly moved and realising my own shortcomings!The Nave Choir are singing another Lent Compline this Friday and Crucifixion a couple of weeks time. It'll be a bit strange as I'm also off up to Liverpool the w/end of Passion Sunday to sing the Stainer in their annual DIY scratch Crucifixion. Always been Ian Tracey's direction before but this year David Poulter for the first time. Choir of 100+ for that one and back to 30+ for our's! Know which is more challenging!

It'd be good to catch up but in the meantime, is there any way one can swap email add's on the MBs? I'm a total novice at these things and wouldn't want to break rules!

Best.
Liz

Try Guildford, then!

MILES apart are the stalls with no wooden 'backing' and all open to concrete (though plastered over) for its length, bredth, depth and height!

Norwich is too close, though, I found, although the placing of its quire in the 'nave' (ie where the screen is in the nave, before the crossing - like Westminster Abbey) is prefereable to places where the quire (and screen) is 'beyond' the crossing...

Winchester also has no spire (anymore) - soaring height outside and in is a must, really, for a classic cathedral, IMHO!

DAI

Know what you mean. AND the stalls are flippin' uncomfortable if you have to sit front row Dec! Built for 12year olds not those of use of more mature years with legs!

I do enjoy singing in the Nave though. Just so long as I don't look beyond my DOM or I start to panic at the sheer space to fill with sound! Just a scared old Sop me!

Listen out for Easter CE on radio when our full Choral Foundation will be singing - Sarah's farewell performance too! Our boys and girls sound extremely good together which isn't something I would always feel able to say about mixing voices.
BW

Lizzie
Looking into the Email, more anon.

I wonder which Cathedral messageboarders would say is their favourite place to sing. Gloucester is a firm favourite for me.

Phil

I'm sure all opinions on "places where they sing" will be subjective, but here's my half dollars-worth.

I sang at Guildford a couple of times as a student and didn't find it as dispiriting as some have said. Also, the resident Cantoris tenor illustrated his psalter and his work was well worth seeing (especially "They angered Moses in the Gents"). I like the building too.

I found the Quire at York rather unforgiving to sing in. By contrast, Canterbury was rather good, and the custom of singing from the pulpitum steps at the Sunday Eucharist was quite exhilarating. Exeter and Durham have sometimes been given as having perfect acoustics - I didn't find either to be outstanding. Windsor was good, and so was Hereford.

I conducted a Canadian choir for a week at Norwich this year. It's certainly a very intimate Quire (particularly as we had over 40 singers) and the organ needs careful handling. Perhaps the Sunday Eucharist in the Nave (with all heavy artillery firing at the end of Darke in F) was the most thrilling part of the week.

Nearly fourteen years at Belfast Cathedral was an interesting experience, in that the building is the same height and width as York, with a bass-friendly echo of seven seconds. Added to that, there is no quire screen so all services were sung to the whole building. The stalls are very wide apart and have no backs. Hence the tradition of up to 30 boys (I was lucky in that recruitment was not a problem).

Gloucester would be my favourite, too, Phil. I much prefer the intimacy of the choirstalls to the anonymous sound produced whilst singing in the nave. To really make a mark in such a huge space I think you have to sing with a big choral society, e.g.the Three Choirs Festival. I have enjoyed the choirstalls at Southwell and especially Christchurch Priory as well.

I think I know the boys you are talking about- St.Georges?

Quoted from this message

St Annes Cathedral and St Georges are within half a mile of each other. One would expect the Cathedral to have a good choir as indeed a succession of good DOMs testifies.Sadly a safeguarding problem exists at present that is affecting recruitment. The choir is however enthusiastic but small.

St Georges church has no acoustic but has a reputation for having one of the best Parish choirs around. This is hardly a surprising if one lists some of the past DOMs. Jonathan Gregory(Leicester Cath.) Charles Harrison(Lincoln Cath) David Revels(Choral scholar ChristChurch Oxford.) and Nigel McClintock recently appointed to St Peters RC Cathedral Belfast, after a good spell at Croydon Parish Church. This remarkable choir has been well represented with past choristers who have become organ scholars or choral scholars in Oxbridge, London Colleges of music and Cathedrals.

Phil

We probably have enough decent voices on the boards to do a summer week in St Oggs. The Dean isn't called Father Ted by any chance???.
Forgot to say on the HHs thread All my Hope is recorded on a C Singers CD of Stanford and Howells.

Phil

Yes, quite a few times. A small group, some of whom are involved in opera. they have released their own CDs, I think on Priory.

Phil