(Formerly) CE from York

[Wolsey]

All you seem to get from choirmasters these days is moaning that recruitment is difficult. What are they doing about it?

To whom, precisely, are you referring? Choirmasters in cathedrals or parish churches?

It's no use just plodding on with voice trials that don't attract enough applicants and relying on associated choir schools.

I don't quite follow this sentence. Surely voice trials attract choristers who, where a choir school exists, are educated in that school. What sort of reliance is being placed on "associated choir schools"?

New and innovative ideas and much more effort is required. Where are they and where is it?

Be a chorister for a day has been a feature of some choral foundations, and a huge number have been involved in outreach in schools for some years now. Outreach, however, does not necessarily result in boosting recruitment.

It's no use having a very talented choirmaster if he hasn't eventually got a choir to train. It's no use taking a short term outlook on this. You have to recruit all the time and I don't see this being done frankly.

Again, first-hand evidence to back your third sentence would be welcome.

[Gabriel Jackson]

I can only speak for Norway with which I have first-hand experience. There is not the same choir-school culture, I grant, but there is a lot of singing for boys. The Silver Boys' Choir in Oslo is world famous. And the Jentekor at Tronheim Cathedral has separate girls' and boys' choirs of note.

I'm sure you're right (though the two swallows cited don't make a summer) but in Denmark, for instance, where I was working last weekend, we were talking about just this, and I was told there was very little in the ways of boys' singing, and what there is isn't very good. But the fact remains that there are plenty of countries with very good singing cultures (often better than our own, particularly at the amateur level) that do not have the plethora of all-male choirs that we do, but still manage to find plenty of tenors and basses. So the argument that the demise of boys singing in cathedrals/college chapels (not than anyone is arguing for that!) would mean no professional male singers in the future is a nonsense. As has been pointed out here before (by Chris Watson I think) some might be surprised to learn how many professional male choral/consort singers in this country were NOT choristers as boys.

[ardcarp]

On a wider issue, it is amazing that countries such as Norway and Iceland, with very small populations, produce such amazing music and musicians. Maybe something to do with state sponsorship of the arts?

[Magnificat]

To whom, precisely, are you referring? Choirmasters in cathedrals or parish churches?

I don't quite follow this sentence. Surely voice trials attract choristers who, where a choir school exists, are educated in that school. What sort of reliance is being placed on "associated choir schools"?

Be a chorister for a day has been a feature of some choral foundations, and a huge number have been involved in outreach in schools for some years now. Outreach, however, does not necessarily result in boosting recruitment.

Again, first-hand evidence to back your third sentence would be welcome.

Wolsey,

1) Cathedrals

2) Too much frankly. In my opinion cathedral choirs these days must be open to any boy who wants to join them and is good enough and it should not be a requirement for him to attend the associated school. This could apply to college choirs as well as they are also having difficulty recruiting boys.

3)Outreach, as I understand it, is not aimed primarily at recruiting choristers rather to use a cathedral's resources to encourage children to sing.. It is up to DoMs to visit schools and sell their product as it were.

4) Cathedrals seem to stick to their once a year voice trial or say in adverts that the DoM is willing to see prospective choristers at any time. I think they have got to be far more pro - active. It is really a case, as I have said above, of continually getting out in schools and around their communities not waiting for boys to come to them. There is evidence of parish church DoMs and some DoMs of cathedrals without choir schools doing this but that is all.

VCC

[Magnificat]

[QUOTE=french frank;175103]

I understand all the reasons why boys should be encouraged to sing to very high standards, but not at the expense of girls, surely?

ff
As far as I can see no one on this thread has said this.

A boy's voice is special because of its transitory nature and its wonderful flowering at around the age of 13, whereas girls can sing forever.

VCC

[AscribeUntoTheLad]

[QUOTE=Magnificat;175220]

A boy's voice is special because of its transitory nature and its wonderful flowering at around the age of 13, whereas girls can sing forever.

VCC

On the other hand, it could be argued that as females aren't currently allowed to sing in cathedral choirs past the age of 18 whereas males can do it for their whole lives, we should be focussing on the girls while they have their chance....

[french frank]

A boy's voice is special because of its transitory nature and its wonderful flowering at around the age of 13, whereas girls can sing forever.

VCC

Well, I suggest that you lobby actively behind the scenes for DOMs to pursue your advice. You could write a short pamphlet to circulate among them. I think that would be more effective than posting views on the duties of DOMs on this forum.

Speaking as an outsider who only reads these discussions, I think it's a shame that a thread devoted to a particular service, and one which seems generally to have been very much appreciated, turns yet again into a discussion about the need to recruit and encourage more boys, a principle which few, surely, would disagree about.

I have amended the description of this board from 'and all matters choral' to 'and choral music' to keep it within the remit of Radio 3.

[BBMmk2]

On a wider issue, it is amazing that countries such as Norway and Iceland, with very small populations, produce such amazing music and musicians. Maybe something to do with state sponsorship of the arts?

That may have somethin g to do with it or the cost of living there is rather ex[pensive to!! There are somne top class brass bands out there as well, eg Eikhanger-Bjorsvik Musikklag, for instance?

[ardcarp]

BBM Yes the cost of living is eye-watering. I don't quite follow why this leads to a flourishing of the arts! Do you have a theory?

[BBMmk2]

Well my theory is that these Scandinavian countries have always had a substantial music and arts culture and especially with their goverments' funding of the arts and that the cost of living to comes into it, has made ita lot ewasier for these people to make a sucess of their work? (In a nutshell).

[MrGongGong]

BBM Yes the cost of living is eye-watering. I don't quite follow why this leads to a flourishing of the arts! Do you have a theory?

I can make an educated guess ................... pay more tax, have better social and health services and arts and education funding maybe ?

[ardcarp]

Thanks BBM and McGG. Sorry to be so thick. Obvious really.

a.

[Gabriel Jackson]

Money doesn't make a great artist, talent does!

Does Iceland, for example, really have more great musicians relative to its population than the UK does?!

[DracoM]

Erm..l.....after all, not sure how you'd measure that anyway!!

[Miles Coverdale]

2) Too much frankly. In my opinion cathedral choirs these days must be open to any boy who wants to join them and is good enough and it should not be a requirement for him to attend the associated school. This could apply to college choirs as well as they are also having difficulty recruiting boys.

I think you'll find that they are already open to any boy who is good enough. Every cathedral of which I've had experience has funding available to support choristers from less monied backgrounds.

You say that it shouldn't be a requirement to attend the associated school. While this may on the face of it seem like a good idea, there are considerable practical difficulties in having choristers in the same choir attending different schools. If morning practice finishes ten minutes before the start of the (cathedral) school day, what happens to the boy whose school is a couple of miles away? Does he leave the practice early? How does he get to his own school? What happens if there is a special service in the middle of the school day? Etc etc.