Williams joins chorus of calls to save choir

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has backed calls to save an Anglican choir scrapped by a Cambridge college.

St John’s College announced that it would strip funding from the church choir St John’s Voices amid plans to fund a “broader” range of music.

The college also informed choristers that it would cut the number of chapel services held at St John’s tin order to use the space for “civic engagement”.

Dr Williams, who attended Christ’s College as a theology undergraduate, has thrown his support behind a petition to save the ensemble, and put his name to an open letter which brands plans to disband the choir as “regressive”.

The petition has attracted almost 4,000 signatures.

In a note left on the online petition, he wrote: “I sang in lots of choirs at Cambridge when I was there. I wasn’t ever going to be a professional musician but access to the choral world made a huge difference to my life in all sorts of ways.

“This is a very short sighted and unfortunate decision which will make it harder for today’s students.”

Gareth Malone, the musician and broadcaster, and Dame Sarah Connolly, the opera singer, have also called for the choir to be spared.

St John’s College initially told choristers that the choir would be disbanded to make way for a more diverse range of music.

In a more detailed statement, the college has since set out how it will deal with “students’ preferences and experiences in music today are different from those of previous generations”.

These include a scheme to provide music lessons for any St John’s student, along with musician-in-residence schemes, including for jazz and pop.

The college has also proposed “outreach and engagement programmes”.