Friends in need
The campaign to save cathedral choirs As the pandemic took hold in 2020, virtually all music making across the UK, and certainly that involving large numbers of performers, had to stop abruptly, placing the career of many musicians in jeopardy – not least, those working with cathedrals and their choirs. Not only did cathedral musicians lose their regular fees, but income for cathedrals decreased so radically that the future of their choirs was threatened even to the point of extinction.
In the face of this, Friends of Cathedral Music (a UK organisation founded in 1956 by Revd Ronald Sibthorp in response to choirs having been decimated by World War II) joined forces with The Ouseley Church Music Trust and the Choir Schools’ Association to set up the Cathedral Choirs’ Emergency Fund. With the aim of providing immediate support for cathedral choirs forced to suspend activities by Covid-19, all three partners committed £250,000 to the fund; this was soon supplemented by thousands of supporters from across the world, who raised £1 million in response to the campaign, providing an invaluable source of assistance in such difficult times. Following on from that, Friends of Cathedral Music created an umbrella organisation, the Cathedral Music Trust (cathedralmusictrust.org.uk), of which Harry Christophers, the founder and conductor of The Sixteen, has been appointed the first president.