Sunday Worship from Lancing College

[ardcarp]

...with bells and smells.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b0m21z#play

(Pity they didn't put the appropriate picture on the web-page)

This is a choir surely worthy of any cathedral or college?

Mrs A. noticed that they also (yesterday) recorded a CE for future broadcast.

From the school's website:

If you want to sing at Lancing, there's so much more to choose from than just the Chapel Choir. The choir itself, with about 60 members, sings at school services, gives concerts in the chapel and other great churches and cathedrals across the country, tours Europe and has made a number of recordings. Other choral groups include: the College Singers, which consists of pupils, staff, parents and friends, who meet mainly during the Lent Term; the Chamber Choir, which meets throughout the year contributes to College concerts and services in the Chapel; the Choral Scholars; and a variety of ad hoc and pupil-led ensembles.

The Lancing College Symphony Orchestra, String Orchestra, Sinfonia, Swing Band and Concert Band all perform regularly at our series of Lunchtime Concerts and at a variety of formal and informal events at Lancing and outside of school. Recent repertoire includes Diana Burrell’s Temper, Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in D, Op.6, No.4, Messiaen’s O Sacrum con Vivium, Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute, scenes from Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No.2, selections from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite and Vaughan Williams’ setting of The Turtle Dove. We encourage pupils to organise and rehearse their own ensembles, with teacher support given throughout the process. This includes rock bands, jazz groups, vocal and chamber ensembles, who take advantage of the Music School's rehearsal facilities, equipment and extensive libraries.

[DracoM]

What truly irks me is that there are a number of very, very good school choirs around the UK with real competence and ambition, singing services weekly and more, and I cannot for the life of me understand why the BBC does NOT become more inventive and use them.

Might also highlight the cause of music in schools. Many but by no means all, the top school choirs are in independent education - ask yourself why? - but the fact that many are does a lot to show how impoverished many state schools and their students are by the current squeeze on resources which has apparently necessitated the cutting of music budgets.

Yes, much is happening, but a heck of a lot more is possible. The BBC has a role to play in this, and IMO is not playing it.

A great shame.

[ardcarp]

I tried not to open that can of worms...about Independent Education. While I'm sure there are exceptions, classical [for want of a better word] music, and especially choral singing as we know it, seems only to flourish there. I wonder what percentage of choral scholars, Young Musicians, etc, etc come from the maintained sector? It takes very dedicated teachers and commitment from parents to pursue proper music outside The Hallowed Precincts. Great that the main Music Colleges offer the Saturday morning junior scholarships....but again, commitment from parents has to be 100%.

[DracoM]

Agreed - parental encouragement and support are absolutely crucial. Make and / or break. I know parents who must drive literally hundreds of a miles a month to take kids to and from, sit in concerts to listen, and do more than a little badgering and nudging over practice etc. Yes.

And I fully take the point about the 'can of worms'. But when youthful excellence is paraded on the BBC, as ardarp hints, maybe more questions ought to be asked of our politicians at local and national levels about school / college etc musical / creative arts grounding, and particularly about why achievement in music in a number of high-skill fields depends so little on what the state provides and so much on what dedicated parents can provide.

How sad that there are such cans to be opened in the first place?

What lessons in good practice do Forumistas know of in other contries?

[ardcarp]

Iceland......

[DracoM]

https://www.aec-music.eu/services/national-overviews/iceland

http://www.musik.is/Nok/Tskolar/tskolare.html

[Vox Humana]

Many but by no means all, the top school choirs are in independent education - ask yourself why? - but the fact that many are does a lot to show how impoverished many state schools and their students are by the current squeeze on resources which has apparently necessitated the cutting of music budgets.

It is utterly reprehensible that this state of affairs merely serves to reinforce, indeed justify, the popular conception that classical music is elitist. Wilfully or otherwise, successive governments have engineered this opinion and seem perfectly content with it. We all know the cure, but the political will isn't there. I am sure that the fundamental problem is that people are indoctrinated with popular music idioms from the cradle and are constantly subjected to them via TV, radio, banks and retail establishments. All the more reason IMO to showcase these talented school musicians. The more the merrier.

I heard Lancing College choir last year singing an Evensong at St Paul's and was mightily impressed. I must catch up with this morning's offering forthwith.

[ardcarp]

I must catch up with this morning's offering forthwith.

Splendid setting of the Mass too...Neil Cox's own.....short bits, of course.

[jonfan]

It is utterly reprehensible that this state of affairs merely serves to reinforce, indeed justify, the popular conception that classical music is elitist. Wilfully or otherwise, successive governments have engineered this opinion and seem perfectly content with it. We all know the cure, but the political will isn't there. I am sure that the fundamental problem is that people are indoctrinated with popular music idioms from the cradle and are constantly subjected to them via TV, radio, banks and retail establishments. All the more reason IMO to showcase these talented school musicians. The more the merrier.

I heard Lancing College choir last year singing an Evensong at St Paul's and was mightily impressed. I must catch up with this morning's offering forthwith.

agree, impressive, forthright singing this morning.
VH is right, successive governments have gone along with the idea that classical music tuition is a luxury and not an essential part of the curriculum. I would say not just music but the arts generally. Many years ago, in more enlightened times, Sir Alec Clegg, the Director of Education for the West Riding, asked the parents of children in the area what they wanted from the education their children received. The answer came back 'happiness in life'. He then went about promoting the arts in schools as well as three Rs. School days would often start with an art lesson, painting, clay work, etc. Social cohesion was achieved with wealth or background irrelevant. Free music tuition,and instruments, got children from the most poor areas into bands, choirs, drama and art groups. The value put in when these children were young provided them with a lifetime of fulfilment, socially and artistically.
All changed with Mrs Thatcher and money for these projects filtered away, leaving the poor very deprived to this day. I have a pupil in the National Youth Orchestra and it seems most players there are from the maintained sector, plus those in the BBC Young Musician, but its down to the generous purses of the parents who can afford it for the lucky ones to experience these riches. The BBC can plug some of this gap but the government insists it uses the license fee to give free TV to the elderly instead of on programmes [do the utility companies fund cold weather payments??].
Sorry, I could go on but I get very sad when I see what could be and the sterling work teachers, colleges, BBC, and parents, do to further the arts with very little government blessing.

[BBMmk2]

Worth Abbey School Choir and The Schola Cantorum of Ardingly College(I'm biased with this one, are two cases in point here

[DracoM]

jonfan

Agree with SO much of that. I live in rural NW and parents who want to give their children opportunties have to drive MILES to facilitate those opportunities. Their valour in fierce NW winters, holiday traffic mayhem is beyond praise - they do it,not once, but weekly and more.

Cost of small bus to take a class of Y9's to a concert in a town 30 miles away £500+. So that more or less cleans out most the Music budget for a school year. On ONE trip. Guess why they don't go?

I played in a small ensemble in the local primary school - we are amateurs and charged nowt - and the sheer energised joy in those kids being IN THE ROOM with players was infectious. Yes, WE got pleasure, but the kids did too, and the real test is what maybe one, maybe two or three then thought and felt deeply enough to think 'I'd like a go at that'. They gathered and tried blowing and plucking and beating things and had fun, discovered that they too had musical gifts and physical properties not on;y found in adults. A thrill for them?

So, maybe...maybe...one of them might.......??

[teamsaint]

Unfortunately,in a sense, the private sector has upped its game no end in the last 30 years, and is often expert in creating opportunity for its students. Proof of this is its domination of the pop music scene. Around 60% of chart acts are private school in origin , I think.

Dracs is quite right to flag up the costs involved. i once calculated the cost of getting our middle lad through his cello exams to Grade 8 . Eye watering,and financially painful for us, but in fact worth every penny. The various musical activities he did, ( classical, metal band, etc) gave him enormous confidence , as well width of experience in tangental matters.
And he was the cheap one compared to daughter, who studied music at Uni.

Anyway, good to see Lancing getting its day in the sun. Very nice place to sing.

[ardcarp]

Never voted Tory in my life, Gongers. But back to state music provision. Does anyone remember how brilliant Leicestershire Schools music was in the good old days? The local authority was a sort of flagship, funding a fantastic peripatetic service and running orchestras, choirs and other groups, plus free transport for kids. All gone now.

[MrGongGong]

Never voted Tory in my life, Gongers. But back to state music provision. Does anyone remember how brilliant Leicestershire Schools music was in the good old days? The local authority was a sort of flagship, funding a fantastic peripatetic service and running orchestras, choirs and other groups, plus free transport for kids. All gone now.

Sadly true
No Knighton Fields any more

But sadly I don't think enough people really "care enough about it"
so it's inevitable

BUT there is still much to be done in other ways

[BBMmk2]

I played in a charity concert for CAFOD, I think it was, with the actor Christopher Timothy. Lovely organ there.