Whoa...
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Despite Lebrecht’s typically incendiary false headline, there is real concern about the Dean and Chapter wishing to make financial savings from their Music Department under the currently raised banner of extending ‘reach and access’ and increasing ‘diversity and inclusion’. The DoM and ADoM are leaving simultaneously and speculation is understandably rife throughout the chattering cathedral music community because Winchester has long been at the pinnacle of cathedral choirs in this country. Similar policies have led to the recent disbanding by SJC of John’s Voices (who have just sung their final service in St John’s College chapel) and the cessation of choirs (St Asaph, Belfast, Sheffield), the axing of lay clerks and choral scholars (Llandaff), divorce from private choir schools (Canterbury from St Edmund’s School [https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-are-cathedrals-cutting-ties-with-choral-schools/] or enforced reorganisation after their closure (a success in Ripon’s case).Originally posted by Vox Humana View Post
Addendum:
The nine page PowerPoint document that Lebrecht selectively quoted from is now up on Facebook. At the end it asks 'Any questions?'
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Thanks for that, Keraulophone. I don't see anything particularly controversial in the bullet points, but the devil may be in the detail. I wonder how the 'additional music partners' will impact the current set-up.Comment
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Winchester Cathedral has made a Statement - https://www.winchester-cathedral.org...ter-cathedral/
"By expanding the number of choirs, we can offer participation to many more children who now benefit from the joy of singing in the cathedral. This too is excellence..."
"the power of English Cathedral choral music at Winchester to inspire, teach and transform lives" - less Leighton and Mathias from now on then!
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They're going the way of an increasing number of music departments - not least so as to show outreach, accessibility and impact (whichever way any of those might be measured). Perhaps the music team leaving were less keen on those aspects, and more devoted to the initial purpose of cathedral choirs: to sing the daily office, however many turned up, to the praises of God.
I wonder, where there are choir schools involved, how much of it has to do with an awareness that the next government is looking less friendly towards public/private schools.Comment
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So, does that mean longer services with more music, or a reduced role for the current choristers? As usual with statements like this, what isn't said may be as significant as what is said. What's the management structure going to be for this brave new world?Originally posted by Keraulophone View Post
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The Telegraph's parliamentary sketchwriter blames a labour ex-PM for 'the CoE manager class that scraps choirs in the name of diversity'...
Vandals have taken charge of the Church of England by Madeline Grant
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The above-mentioned article may be behind a paywall. Here's how it opens...
‘How much of the meaning of the words was lost when they were produced with all the meretricious charm of melody!” declares Obadiah Slope of Mr Harding’s beloved Barchester choir. The war against church choirs is nothing new. Invariably there are people who simply don’t “get it”. Those for whom music, married to words in worship, echoing the rhythms of the past and making them live again in the present, is not beautiful but a distraction from what really matters.
Slope is the villain of Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers, and at the heart of his villainy is his managerial campaign to do away with music in the cathedral. A sweet conceit for a Victorian novel, you might think. Alas the spirit of Slope lives on.
Another week, another miserable story courtesy of the Church of England. Winchester – where sung worship has featured since before the days of Alfred the Great – has reportedly shown plans to its choral foundation to “increase diversity of contribution” in line with its main priorities of “reach and access” and “diversity and inclusion”. (Note the wishy-washy language, the lack of any mention of the worship of God.) According to classical music magazine Slipped Disc, in management-speak, this means replacing the cathedral choristers with a “variety of singers from other parts of the regional demographic”. Jargon becomes a cover for what is, essentially, vandalism, the destruction of centuries of beauty for no apparent reason.
All this has come to light via a leaked PowerPoint presentation which the press and the people who worship there were presumably not meant to see until the replacement of choral singers became a fait accompli; a classic case of managers being totally unaccountable to the people they purport to serve.
We must hope this plan remains confined to the PowerPoint deck, but similarly baffling decisions have become par for the course. St John’s College, Cambridge recently disbanded its wonderful mixed-voice Anglican choir St John’s Voices, which sings choral Evensong each week, in favour of “more diverse musical genres”. In 2020, Sheffield Cathedral sacked its entire choir, supposedly to reflect “the exciting future of the mixed urban community in which we live and work”.
...and concludes:
It is rarely entirely clear who is responsible for these decisions, which is part of the problem, though it isn’t coming from the people in the pews. The organisational structure of ecclesiastical bodies, both cathedrals and dioceses, is now so complicated that no one can or will take responsibility for even major changes; which, ironically, makes manifestly self-destructive decisions that bit easier to execute. Attendance at Evensong is one of the few areas of CofE worship that is actually growing, so, beyond malice, there can be little logical argument for dismantling world-beating cathedral choirs.
The obvious conclusion is that the people running the Church of England resent the Church in its current form, and everything that it most excels at. Trusting our national heritage with these people is akin to handing over a Ming vase to a gorilla. Just because the gorilla happens to be wearing a suit and carrying a clipboard, doesn’t mean he won’t still chuck it against the wall. The press – especially of the Right – is often accused of mindlessly bashing the CofE. In fact, very few of us hate it. Quite the opposite. It is loved but not, it seems, by the actual people who run it.
Their efforts may even prove self-defeating. For instance, if “diversity” is no longer seen as the commendable idea of different groups coexisting peacefully, but something that repudiates the culture that has shaped our common life, then the public will be more likely to reject it. Then again, I don’t see clamour for cultural vandalism coming from “diverse communities” themselves, but from the faceless “wrecker” administrative class.
(8 May 2024)
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Quite interesting the fact that comments are disabled for the post announcing this statement on the Cathedral's FB page.Originally posted by Keraulophone View PostComment
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Does anyone know what happened at Sheffield in the end?
Did their very similar sounding project work?Last edited by Alison; 09-05-24, 19:53.Comment
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Latest from Winchester:
Winchester, 1295 (Diocesan Synod resolution): 'the parents of boys [in the parishes] should be induced to let their boys, after they know how to read the Psalter, learn singing also; lest by chance after they have learnt higher subjects they should be obliged to go back to this, or being ignorant of it should be always less fit for divine service'.
Courtesy of Andrew Parrott: The Pursuit of Musick.Comment
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The post of Interim DoM at Winchester has appeared on the cathedral website (only). Applications close on May 22, with interviews on May 23. Hurry, hurry.Comment
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It's fairly well hidden. It took me a while to find it.
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Which sounds a bit as if they know who is going to be given the post and the advertising is for purposes(tick boxing) other than finding a candidate?Originally posted by Caussade View PostComment
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