Today I would like to feature the Chichester Cathedral Choir.  Their website reports that there are 18 choristers and 6 lay vicars, although the picture of the choir shows fewer than 18 choristers.  In many ways it is a typical English cathedral choir set-up.  Nevertheless, I would like to point out an important lesson to be learned from Chichester, namely that there is great continuity in the English cathedral tradition.  How do they achieve it? Let’s look at the director of the choir, Charles Harrison.

Mr. Harrison began as a chorister at Southwell Minister, after which he was the organ scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge (another choral foundation). Following university, he worked as the Assistant Organist at Carlisle Cathedral and then as the Assistant Director of Music at Lincoln Cathedral.  In essence, he has been working in the cathedral system since he was probably 8 or 9 years old.  There are very few associations in the world where the workers still apprentice for their positions, and the English cathedral system is one of them.  Now, lest I create the wrong impression, one must remember it is not a prerequisite that one have been a chorister in order to direct the music at an English cathedral, but of the directors I can think of at the moment, more of half of them were once choristers. Every year the English cathedrals graduate bright musicians for the future as well as others who will be discerning supporters of music.  It really is a self-perpetuating system.  This is an IMPORTANT lesson that each musician in the Catholic Church should learn-recruit, recruit, RECRUIT!  Do not complain to me that there are not enough good musicians in the Church.  Instead, get out there and form them yourself!

Below is a video of the choir singing Poulenc’s Vinea mea electa.