‘Girls and women to sing as members of The Choir of St John’s‘

[Keraulophone]

https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/girls-and-women-sing-members-choir-st-johns?fbclid=IwAR1HV4b26zxppgD6JdMQLEjMsUVI444GqRj8JiQmWGfVEkKIiw3BrQtqF7M

[cat]

A big litmus test. If St John's pull off a mixed treble line then many other places will surely find it hard not to follow, especially cathedrals if there's money to be saved. Exceptions being places with single-sex boy's choir schools such as Westminster Abbey and the three Oxford foundations (although all three have women on the back row as of this term).

[DracoM]

Blimey!!

[Old Grumpy]

A big litmus test. If St John's pull off a mixed treble line then many other places will surely find it hard not to follow, especially cathedrals if there's money to be saved. Exceptions being places with single-sex boy's choir schools such as Westminster Abbey and the three Oxford foundations (although all three have women on the back row as of this term).

Good News!

Got to be the way forward, surely?

[cat]

I'm not sure that halving the number of boy choristers has got to be the way forward, no.

Having never been in a choir let alone taught one I’m probably not the best person to tackle this, but since no one else is biting I’ll have a go.

Whatever one thinks about the tradition and the sound of choirs, girls deserve an equality of opportunity to boys when it comes to the benefits of choristership. There are currently more girl choristers than boy choristers in cathedral and collegiate choirs, so over the last few decades this has been achieved in terms of numbers. However significant disparities remain because girls top lines often sing fewer services, have less access to funding, and are under-represented in many of the most prestigious institutions.

The pressure to address these inequalities isn't going to evaporate, so what to do? The obvious options are to:

1) introduce girl's top lines in places that don't have them, and on an equal footing with boys.

This would result in a doubling of chorister numbers in those places, for which funding would be needed. It would generally mean both the girls and boys singing half the number of services than the boys alone currently sing, and that is probably not desirable although many excellent choirs seem to cope without singing quite as often as others (this could of course be overcome by doubling the number of services but that's not realistically going to happen).

2) allow mixed top lines in places that currently have only boys

This would halve the number of boys, which is surely not desirable. Other concerns regarding vocal development etc seem to be addressable, and then there's the social and developmental aspect of the value of single-sex environments - something I can't really comment on, but if girl choirs such as Pembroke and Merton aren't being obliged to accept boys I'd hope the leaders of some boy's choirs would feel able to assert the value of refusing to do likewise, provided that equality has been established more generally.

Probably the way forward will end up being some mixture of the above that will hopefully satisfy all parties. As I mentioned up the thread, those with co-ed choir schools will probably change most readily to mixed top lines (basically John's and King's, Hereford and Chichester, and St George's Windsor) and then those with boy's-only choir schools (New College, Magdalen, Westminster) should be able to justify remaining as they are.

As to places with two separate top lines, i.e. most other cathedrals, Christ Church etc, I'd hope they continue on that basis with perhaps some further equalisation between the two choirs where needed. If they start to follow the mixed model to save money, then overall chorister numbers will plummet which will be a disaster.

[ardcarp]

On the whole, I'm pleased that girls have an equal opportunity to sing...on an equal basis....in one of the world's best kids'+adults' choir. There is always the niggling doubt that the rather special thing that boys' unbroken voices have will somehow gradually diminish. But I think Andrew N. is probably the best person to make sure there is no 'them and us' in the choir.

On a slightly different note (ho-ho) it's recently been the 30th (?) anniversary of the girls' choir at Salisbury. I remember hearing their first CE broadcast with the wonderful Richard Seal. I was expecting to hear a somewhat gentle tone, but none of it! The top line was quite edgy..in a ggod way... and in no way effete.

Having singing daughters and g-daughters myself (one an ex- Oxbridge choral scholar who did much at Exeter and Buckfast during the lock-down) I can attest that some girls can sing with oomph and no wobble! There is a general difference in boys' voices in that, especially near 'the change', they naturally produce, if needed, a fine crescendo as they go up the scale. But some girls can do it too, so I don't think we need to have worries on that score. My only worry would be that as time passes singing may come to be regarded as 'a girls' thing' and the social norm...probably emphasised by social media... may be that boys are put off. Let's hope not.

[Resurgam]

A big litmus test. If St John's pull off a mixed treble line then many other places will surely find it hard not to follow, especially cathedrals if there's money to be saved. Exceptions being places with single-sex boy's choir schools such as Westminster Abbey and the three Oxford foundations (although all three have women on the back row as of this term).

It's not very clear from the website as to whether there will be a separate choir of boys and men + women altos singing and a separate choir of girls and men + women altos singing.

To mix the boys and girls is not the usual situation in cathedral choirs, rather they tend to share the services and join up on special occasions. Some cathedral choirs do have women altos on the back line.

Also the cathedra choir in these circumstances is usually now defined as consisting of boys, girls and men( women).

Frankly, for St John's to lose its renowned choir of boys and men completely would be nothing less than a disaster for the Anglican Choral Tradition. It can't be true surely? What can Andrew Nethsingha be thinking about. Do St John's have trouble recruiting boys? It must be political correctness again.

If, they have any sense King's will avoid this route at all costs.

[Old Grumpy]

Thank you to responding to the call.

I too have not sung in a church or cathedral choir, but certainly enjoy "the product". I was very pleasantly surprised when I first heard an ecclesiastical choir with girls on the top line. Both approaches and concerns listed in the above posts seem very reasonable to me.

[DracoM]

What I fear is the decline in the numbers of well-trained boys becoming fine pro musicians.
Boys of the usual 'chorister age' - 9ish to 11 / 12 can be seriously put off by having girls in the group.

Frankly, as some have said above, I was utterly gobsmacked that, given the enviably high global place of John's in the boy-led choral tradition, they went through with the change. I genuinely thought it was a clever joke / con to catch headlines.

[Miles Coverdale]

There is a legal aspect to this, which I don't think I've seen mentioned here before. If the school attended by the choristers is co-educational (and the great majority are, including those attached to King's and St John's colleges), then I believe that a school offering scholarships which have financial inducements attached would be contravening equalities legislation by offering those scholarships to only half the school population. Continuing to disregard that legislation could put at risk the school's charitable status, which could well have very serious financial implications.

Regarding ardcarp's point about singing becoming 'a girls' thing', I think that singing for boys with unchanged voices has been pretty uncool and counter-cultural for some time now, and becomes more so with every passing year, unfortunately.

[jonfan]

I too remember the thrill of hearing the Salisbury choir 30 years ago. I’ve digitised the tape and it still sounds terrific today.
It’s about time the few remaining prestigious Choral foundations without a girls contribution got their acts together. Didn’t Daniel Hyde say ‘watch this space’ in one of his early interviews after moving to King’s?
I can’t believe that St John’s has difficulty attracting high quality boys’ voices so it must be about inclusivity. The best practice must be as is done at Truro, Wakefield and Salisbury, among others, where boys and girls mostly operate as independent treble choirs.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Regarding ardcarp's point about singing becoming 'a girls' thing', I think that singing for boys with unchanged voices has been pretty uncool and counter-cultural for some time now, and becomes more so with every passing year, unfortunately.

This is partially true, but in my 23 years as a classroom music teacher, I ran separate boys' and girls' junior choirs. Without this separation, there would have been far fewer boys continuing to join the mixed senior choirs.

[cat]

I am sure that what must be the wealthiest choral foundation in the world with one of the most highly-regarded fee-paying prep schools in the country would have the resources to support two treble lines. So perhaps it was thought preferable to maintain the current number of sung services for each treble rather than divide the duties.

I have also heard that best practice for school choirs from both a recruitment and pedagogical viewpoint is a diamond model of having mixed gender choirs for the youngest and oldest children, but splitting boys and girls from e.g. age 8 to 14. But John's isn't most schools or most choirs, so perhaps they can see a way to navigate this. I don't think they'll need to worry about recruitment or boys dropping out, but I guess there will be challenges.

[ahinton]

This is partially true, but in my 23 years as a classroom music teacher, I ran separate boys' and girls' junior choirs. Without this separation, there would have been far fewer boys continuing to join the mixed senior choirs.

But why might you suppose this to have been the case?

[gurnemanz]

This is partially true, but in my 23 years as a classroom music teacher, I ran separate boys' and girls' junior choirs. Without this separation, there would have been far fewer boys continuing to join the mixed senior choirs.

I taught modern languages at a large comprehensive school in the 80s. One lunch hour I got randomly signed up for the school choir by a colleague saying: Come on, we need some blokes. Even with a dozen male staff members bolstering it the choir was predominantly female. I did take to it, however, and my my modest choral singing career was launched. I eventually ended up as chairman of our small local Choral Soc.