Is recruiting an issue for Cathedral Choirs?

[Gabriel Jackson]

I'm not sure how you are defining "choir school" but a school that boards cathedral choristers and is a member of the Choir Schools Association counts as one in my book, just as ending that relationship, ceasing scholarships, and recruiting choristers from elsewhere counts as "ditching" that relationship.

The boys have always been recruited from elsewhere. What has changed is that they are no longer required to attend St Edmund's School, and to board (at 18, The Precincts, not at the school). Of course, none of that has ever been required of the girls, whose 10th Anniversary we are celebrating on Sunday.

Other recent changes - like the re-introduction of choral scholars to the back rows - have had a very positive impact on the quality of the music-making at Canterbury.

[Keraulophone]

for example, York's choir school had to close.

https://www.stpetersyork.org.uk/-st-peter-s-8-13/york-minster-choristers

(...although the Minster School closed in 2020 due to the lack of visitor income during the pandemic.)

[Choral Enthusiast]

The boys have always been recruited from elsewhere. What has changed is that they are no longer required to attend St Edmund's School, and to board (at 18, The Precincts, not at the school). Of course, none of that has ever been required of the girls, whose 10th Anniversary we are celebrating on Sunday.

Other recent changes - like the re-introduction of choral scholars to the back rows - have had a very positive impact on the quality of the music-making at Canterbury.

I attended a wonderful Evensong last year with the back row and girl choristers. The back row are superb, and the girl choristers were brilliant. Really expressive and uniform singing.

[Benjamin]

I'm not aware of any that follow a hybrid model combining boarding and local day choristers - perhaps it would be thought not to be conducive to team harmony, as it is important for children to feel they are all on an equal footing.

Unless things have changed in the past few years—and, really: has anything changed in the past few years!?—there are a handful that do.

Ely and Durham until very recently required choristers to board; boarding is now available but optional for choristers at both cathedrals. Off the top of my head, I believe Salisbury, Wells, Exeter, Tewkesbury (Dean Close), and Truro (at least for girls, as boarding is from 11+) also offer but do not require chorister boarding—with at least one, Wells, offering a higher base remission % for boarding choristers than for day choristers—and know at least a few other places are, largely for recruitment and retention’s sake, discussing how they might make ‘hybrid’ boarding/day models available for their choristers.

[cat]

Unless things have changed in the past few years—and, really: has anything changed in the past few years!?—there are a handful that do.

Ely and Durham until very recently required choristers to board; boarding is now available but optional for choristers at both cathedrals. Off the top of my head, I believe Salisbury, Wells, Exeter, Tewkesbury (Dean Close), and Truro (at least for girls, as boarding is from 11+) also offer but do not require chorister boarding—with at least one, Wells, offering a higher base remission % for boarding choristers than for day choristers—and know at least a few other places are, largely for recruitment and retention’s sake, discussing how they might make ‘hybrid’ boarding/day models available for their choristers.

That's very interesting to learn, the only such case I was previously aware of was Trollope's fictional Aldminster, which I remember thinking was unusual but perhaps was how things worked at Gloucester (where she did her research) before their school phased out boarding in the 2000s.

I hope this works well for the places you list and more such places consider optional boarding to aid recruitment. It would seem though, that attendance at the attached private school is a requirement for all of these. I presume this is conducive to such a hybrid arrangement being successful, as the school can manage the choristers' time and socialisation etc.

Recruiting from a variety of local state schools is thus surely not going to be achievable alongside optional boarding. It seems it's an either/or situation to increase diversity and opportunity - offer boarding with a day option to enable recruitment from a wide geographic pool, or draw from any and all local schools to recruit from a wide social class pool. Both are exclusionary to certain demographics (there wasn't a single black kid in my large rural state school!). Canterbury has gone with the latter, although as the principal church in the global Anglican communion I would have thought that gaining choristers from all over would be something they would be keen to do.

[oddoneout]

Unless things have changed in the past few years—and, really: has anything changed in the past few years!?—there are a handful that do.

Ely and Durham until very recently required choristers to board; boarding is now available but optional for choristers at both cathedrals. Off the top of my head, I believe Salisbury, Wells, Exeter, Tewkesbury (Dean Close), and Truro (at least for girls, as boarding is from 11+) also offer but do not require chorister boarding—with at least one, Wells, offering a higher base remission % for boarding choristers than for day choristers—and know at least a few other places are, largely for recruitment and retention’s sake, discussing how they might make ‘hybrid’ boarding/day models available for their choristers.

Ely was my first thought for the hybrid model, and I was interested to see that Dean Close is the choir school for Tewkesbury, as that set-up adds distance/travel to the logistics equation.
Hybrid boarding/day schooling is a long established model, which presumably has to manage commitments already(sports matches etc) so it doesn't seem so far-fetched that it could be used for a choir school.

[DracoM]

Check out the arrangements at St Alban's

[Pulcinella]

Check out the arrangements at St Alban's

Why don't you tell us, instead of sending us on a quest?

[oddoneout]

Why don't you tell us, instead of sending us on a quest?

I went on a quest

https://www.choralevensong.org/uk/st-albans-cathedral-65.php

I did get momentarily sidetracked and confused by reference to a King's St Albans at Worcester - turned out to be part of the main school foundation, not a long distance joint school working set-up...

[Benjamin]

Check out the arrangements at St Alban's

Perhaps an encouraging anecdote:

As at St Albans, Ripon’s choristers now have morning rehearsals at the cathedral even though there is not (since 2012) a choir school: I believe the boys rehearse three times a week before school and the girls twice and that the cathedral assumes a great deal of responsibility for getting the children where they need to be: families must get their children to the cathedral in the mornings, but I believe the cathedral then coordinates—through a combination of taxis, minibus, and family carpools—getting the children to their various local schools after morning rehearsals and then back from those schools to the cathedral for rehearsal/Evensong in the afternoons.

All of this is part of Ripon’s ‘Project Phoenix,’ its scheme to rebuild its treble lines after their numbers had plummeted: if I remember correctly, they were in single digits by the time COVID was ‘over.’ And if it’s numbers we’re looking for, it’s worth celebrating what Ronny Krippner et al. are doing there, as they’ve now a cast of thousands. [ETA: Realised after posting that this could be misconstrued as faint praise for Ripon’s numbers only, rather than for both their recruitment success and, e.g., repertoire building, community-making, pedagogy, or performance— not my intention at all!]

There’s good numbers news elsewhere, too, and in rather different local contexts: Liverpool (Anglican), for instance, began the 2022-2023 academic year with 42 new probationers.

Beyond the sheer effort and energy on the part of their music departments, I’m sure that some of this recruitment success is because the choirs at Ripon and Liverpool are not attached to fee-paying choir schools and therefore don’t present—whether in reality or in discouraging pre/misconception—the financial obstacles prospective choir families might face elsewhere. But that needn’t necessarily mean bad news for places with choir schools: while some certainly are struggling to get ten (or even five) children to audition per year, others hear 30+ prospective choristers at voice trials and within nine months have their new cohorts confidently and capably singing solos at Evensong.

[DracoM]

Thx for invaluable info.