Church choirs
Richard Morrison meets the music directors who have blessed their small parishes with a large music tradition
Over the years Britain’s cathedrals and the college chapels of Oxford and Cambridge have received a glowing press for the quality of their choirs. Nothing wrong with that. Many are world-class, even if you catch them at a midweek evensong on a wet February night with almost nobody listening (except the Almighty, of course).
And despite what some dour misogynistic traditionalists may claim, the huge revolution of the past 20 years – girls’ choirs and female directors of music introduced into environments that were, for centuries, exclusively male – has only enriched musicmaking in many of those great establishments.
But what about lower down the sacred-music ladder? An Oxbridge college or major cathedral will spend hundreds of thousands of pounds a year on its music budget. Yet there are parish churches, often in areas where the population is far from well-heeled, where exemplary choral standards are sustained, year after year, for a fraction of that sum.
Is that down to the dedication and leadership of a few outstanding individuals, or are there other magic ingredients for success? And,
conversely, why has choral singing disappeared from so many other churches where a robed choir would have flourished 50 years ago?
I asked the music directors of seven parish churches with choirs that are clearly alive and kicking to divulge the secrets of their success.
For all of them, finding new young choristers is crucial. In the present climate, that’s not easy. ‘It’s difficult to recruit children whose parents don’t attend church, as they are often worried about how the commitment will disrupt their lives,’ says David Ogden, the director of music at Holy Trinity, Westbury-on-trym, in Bristol. ‘Sunday morning is often family time when they can do sport or go shopping together.’
Stephen Bullamore, who runs the music at St Mary Magdalene, Newark-on-trent, agrees. ‘Church attendance nationally has been in decline for a long time, so I am usually recruiting young people from outside the
‘‘ Nothing works better than teaching children to read music and then making sure that the music they sing is of high quality ’’
church’s congregation,’ he points out. ‘This is an additional hurdle, as so many are either “unchurched” or even “anti-church”. Though they readily buy into the musical and educational benefits we offer, they struggle to agree to an association with the church.’
That hostility can even extend to local schools, according to Helen Smee, a former organ scholar at Peterhouse, Cambridge, who has been running the music at St Mary Merton in south London since she left university in 2011. ‘We’d love to be more involved in local schools and support their music teachers, but it’s been very hard to get a foothold,’ she says. ‘They are very reluctant to engage with us, mostly because we are a church organisation. We’ve faced a lot of indifference and negativity.’
The age-range of church choirs can also deter potential junior recruits. Most directors of music I talk to run choirs that include seven year-olds and 70 year-olds – indeed quite a few had 80 year-olds and above! In one respect they are fulfilling a vital communal function. It’s hard to think of other local organisations that bring together the generations in one mutually beneficial activity. But it can be off-putting to youngsters. ‘Children don’t find singing with people of their grandparents’ age very appealing,’ says Jonathan Harris, director of music at St Mary’s, Finedon, in Northamptonshire. ‘Some adults don’t help by standing close to youngsters and singing loudly in an attempt to encourage them to sing out. It’s enough to put anyone off.’
The ‘off-putting adults’ problem isn’t helped by the general feeling that parish church choirs should be open to everyone, and their members not subjected to annual auditions. ‘Like many church choirs we have had to put up with a dominant tenor and a flat soprano for years, but we can’t really ask them not to sing with us,’ says one exasperated director of music. ‘We just hope they don’t put too many people off.’
All that said, the seven directors of music I approached have all been successful in recruiting and retaining young choristers and teenagers. How has that been achieved? The general consensus is that nothing works better than teaching them to read music and then making sure that the music they sing is of high quality – whether it’s from the 16th century or the 21st. In other words, set the bar reasonably but not unattainably high, and nurture a taste for well-crafted compositions from the start.
Most would endorse the strategy articulated by Jem Lowther, a former Eton and Oxford music scholar who is now director of music at All
It’s astonishing how little some parish church councils pay their choir directors
Saints, Northampton. He offers, he says, a music programme that allows choir and congregation ‘to experience some of the best music written over the past 1,000 years’. In his case, the formula has worked spectacularly. When he arrived four years ago he inherited ‘a very rusty choir who sang just a very simple service on a Sunday morning’. Now he has 46 children and teenagers, recruited from 25 different local schools (all but two in the state sector) singing at what he describes as a ‘cathedral standard’.
One tactic adopted by All Saints and other successful parish church choirs is to borrow an idea that’s been knocking around cathedrals and Oxbridge colleges for centuries: instituting choral scholarships that offer a small remuneration (usually a few hundred pounds a year) to teenagers in return for regular attendance. Arguably, churches gain twice from this investment. First, it guarantees more youthful choirs. And second, the scholars – being, by definition, aspiring young musicians – usually put the money toward singing or instrumental lessons, thus increasing their usefulness to the choir director.
Not everyone has gone down this road. ‘We don’t give scholarships as that sets up two groups – the ones that are paid and the ones that aren’t,’ says David Ogden about his 30-strong choir in Westbury-on-trym. ‘I prefer to spend our music budget on a singing teacher and resources for the singers who commit every week.’
That, however, brings us to the vexed question of money. Nobody expects to get rich running a parish choir. But it’s astonishing how little some parish church councils pay their organists and choir directors, compared with what they would pay, let’s say, a plumber to fix the church boiler.
Almost as startling are the differences in music budgets, even between the musicorientated parishes on which I focus here. Including fees for the director of music, organ scholar (if any), choral scholars, and funds for the purchase of music, most of these parishes put aside between £8,000 and £20,000 a year. However at St Mary’s Church in Worsbrough, Yorkshire, where the redoubtable Andrew Noble has run a fine choir for the past 32 years,
the total music budget is ‘between £2,000 and £3,000’ – and that includes his £2,000 salary, which has not increased for 15 years. ‘I don’t think money was my motivation for accepting the position,’ he comments wryly. By contrast, Stephen Bullamore in Newark enjoys a budget of £60,000 a year, which is used to pay the salaries of him and two part-time assistants, as well as eight teenage scholars. These comparative riches stem from the Thomas Magnus Foundation, which has resources stretching back to the fortune amassed by a powerful 16th-century archdeacon and political wheeler-dealer.
Being able to draw on historical resources like this is clearly a huge help. But it’s amazing how much money can be rustled up from present-day donations, legacies and trusts in parishes where the priest and PCC are determined to develop the musicmaking. Jem Lowther in Northampton may claim to operate on ‘a bare minimum’ of resources, but he still has a budget of around £35,000 a year (plus an extra £20,000 if the choir does a foreign tour) which is funded jointly by the PCC and a ‘Friends of All Saints’ Music’ organisation set up in the 1990s. And Helen Smee in Merton can now enjoy playing a rebuilt Mander organ, thanks to a parish fundraising campaign that paid for it in less than a year.
But this raises another key question: how much the musical life of a parish church depends on a music-loving vicar or rector. On this our music directors are forthright. ‘Ongoing support and encouragement from the clergy, especially the most senior person, is crucial for both the music staff and the choristers,’ says Mark Perry, who runs a large choir at Crediton Parish Church in Devon. That view is widely echoed.
‘‘ It’s important to recognise that trainee clergy receive little training in the role of music in liturgy ’’
Some go further. ‘The clergy can see the robed army of a choir as a threat, or not see how they can incorporate the choir into their vision of how they want their church to be,’ says David Ogden. He partly blames theological colleges. ‘It’s important to recognise that trainee clergy receive little training in the role of music in liturgy. When I worked at the Royal School of Church Music I would often tell organists: “Don’t presume your vicar will know what an anthem or voluntary is”.’
As well as clergy, however, parish directors of music also have to maintain good relationships with their congregations, and that can also be tricky. Unlike in cathedrals, where it’s assumed the choir will sing most of the service and the congregation listen, parish church congregations can get very twitchy if they feel that the choir is ‘turning the service into a concert’.
‘Like any discipline, choir members need to sing lots to become good at it,’ says Ogden. ‘The challenge is to build enough choir music into a Eucharist without it becoming too dominant. The key is to convince the congregation of the power of music as a missionary tool to bring people into the church.’
I ask all our directors of music to say whether they’re optimistic or pessimistic about the future of parish-church choirs that sing challenging repertoire. The answers are not clear cut. Many express optimism about the situation in their own churches, while being pessimistic about the state of choral music generally in the Church of England. Their reasons? A general decline in churchgoing, meaning a smaller talent pool within church congregations; a preference by many clergy, especially on the Church’s evangelical wing, for simple ‘worship songs’ led by a pop-style band; and fewer children learning the essentials of musical literacy at school.
My feeling is that the future of parish church choirs largely depends on whether personable, ambitious and energetic young music graduates are attracted to work in this sector. Figures such as Helen Smee and Jem Lowther have clearly made a huge difference to the age-profiles of their parishes, as well as attaining high musical standards, by inspiring a new generation of youngsters to sing well. If the Church of England had any collective sense it would realise that rejuvenated choirs bring in families who wouldn’t necessarily have stepped inside a church.
Does the Church have the sense to realise that, though? Or is the age-old antipathy between clerics and musicians too ingrained to support a widespread musical renaissance in parish churches? Ask me again in 20 years.