Class I days are all the Major Holy Days of the Church. All the festivals of our Lord and a few others are Class I. There is always a First Evensong and Second Evensong. Morning Prayer, the Holy Eucharist and the both Evensongs all have proper psalms and lessons appropriate to the day. The Holy Eucharist is sung, and the Creed and Gloria are used.
|
|
The festival is now three days long consisting of three concerts, a choral masterclass, an organ recital, a Festival Eucharist, buffet lunches, evensongs sung separately by each choir and performances of the "Fringe". The Fringe is an entertainment which is written and performed by the hosting cathedral. It consists of solos sung by lay clerks, comedy acts by organists and vicars, and so on. It is always well received.
|
|
Adult and school choirs offer several concerts and Evensongs yearly. The School Choirs annually participate in Royal School of Church Music choir camps, and a significant number of choristers have gone on to sing in world renowned choral institutions such as the American Boychoir School and Westminster Choir College. Grace's current music director since 1991, Dr. Anne Matlack, a graduate of Yale, also directs the Harmonium Choral Society of Northern New Jersey.
|
|
The Frankfurt Cathedral Choir School (German: Frankfurter Domsingschule), founded in 2011, is a mixed ecumenical children's and youth choir, which accompanies not only mass and evensongs, but also official receptions and openings. The Frankfurter Domsingschule offers any singer, regardless of their religious affiliation, age-based, free vocal basic training at regular rehearsals and valuable one- on-one and group vocal training or early musical education. This extensive basic training is unique for Frankfurt.
|
|
St Alphege has an active music department, with choirs for boys, girls, ladies and men who sing services both separately and in various combinations. There are three sung services every Sunday, regular weekday Evensongs, and larger concerts on a monthly basis. In the past choristers from St Alphege have won Chorister of the Year and many go on to Choral Scholarships at cathedrals or 'Oxbridge' colleges. There are weekly recitals on Wednesdays which attract local and international players and frequent outreach projects with local schools.
|
|
Until October 2008, the choir was run by the organ scholars, who were responsible for music in Chapel and the recruiting, training and conducting of the Choir. Since then, the Director of Music has been responsible for conducting the chapel choir, and, in turn, tutoring and mentoring the organ scholars. Additionnaly the choir employs two singing teachers to aid in the training of the choral scholars and volunteers. The Choir meets three times per week during full term, singing choral evensongs on Wednesday and Sunday evenings, and compline on a Friday.
|
|
Seeking better prospects, he left for Canada in 1929 to become organist of St. Matthew's Anglican Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 1936 while at St. Matthew's, he earned an external BMus from Durham University. After nine years, he left for the Church of the Ascension in Hamilton, Ontario, but stayed there only nine months. In 1937, he was back in Winnipeg, at the downtown parish of All Saints, where he developed a men and boys choir of national renown, and initiated choral evensongs on the model of the Church of England cathedrals.
|
|
St Mary's Church has a traditional Anglican choir of boys and gentlemen, with a history dating back to as early as 1354, after which there are many references to singers and ‘child’s with a surplys’. This tradition is believed to have remained untouched even during Puritan times. The choir has more recently toured Spain, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel and Malta, France, Belgium and Germany, and has sung evensongs at cathedrals including Canterbury and St Paul's. The Choir is affiliated to the RSCM, and choristers are trained using the RSCM ‘Voice for Life’ scheme.
|
|
The choir in procession during a service at St Paul's Cathedral Originally formed in 1888 in conjunction with the choir of All Saints' St Kilda, the cathedral choir led the procession for the official opening in 1891. The choir sings at Evensong throughout the week and for two of the four Sunday services. The choir is also called upon for special occasions including chapter Evensongs, synod services, state funerals, concerts, carol services and seasonal services. Since the early 1990s the choir cassocks are of a deep burgundy colour, matching the stencil design hue on the organ pipes.
|
|
The Abbey possesses, in effect, two choirs. The Abbey Choir sings at Sunday services, with children (boys and girls) and adults in the morning, and adults in the evening. Schola Cantorum is a professional choir of men and boys based at Dean Close Preparatory School and sings at weekday Evensongs as well as occasional masses and concerts. The Abbey School Tewkesbury, which educated, trained and provided choristers to sing the service of Evensong from its foundation in 1973 by Miles Amherst, closed in 2006; the choir was then re-housed at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, and renamed the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum.
|
|
Since July 2002 the Prospective Organ Scholars course has been separated from the main summer school in Oundle and now takes place in Cambridge and Oxford in alternate years. The students are accommodated in an Oxbridge College, and thus are given a real boost prior to their all-important organ scholarship examinations in September. They are required to direct, sing and accompany three Evensongs in different college chapels, with Compline on two evenings. Mornings and late evening are taken up with organ tuition and practice, with full access being given to college organs in Cambridge and Oxford.
|
|
Thereafter, the Three Choirs Festival, as it was then known, continued until 1913 when the annual meeting was suspended because of the First World War. The festival was revived in 1920 and continued to be held until 1932. At that time the annual meeting consisted of just a single day and the joint performance by the three choirs of a choral evensong. In 1960 the festival was re-established by John Birch (Chichester), Alwyn Surplice (Winchester) and Christopher Dearnley (Salisbury), with the title changed to the Southern Cathedrals Festival, and the proceedings increased to two days, with two joint Evensongs and the addition of a concert.
|
|
One of his principal concerns revisited throughout the text is the availability of an English-language Bible for the common people to read. Latin was, at the time, the official language of the church: All services and ceremonies were conducted in Latin, and as a result, the Bible too was only available in Latin. In fact, the church discouraged people from reading the Bible at all. Tyndale criticizes the church for allowing the English people to be ignorant of the Bible, and replacing the teaching of scripture with ceremonies or ritual superstition. “On the holy days which were ordained to preach God’s word, set up long ceremonies, long matins, long masses and long evensongs, and all in Latin that they understand not, and roll them in darkness, that ye may lead them whither ye will” (90).
|
|
Immediately after retirement from the American Boychoir, Dr. Litton served a two-year tenure as choirmaster of the Washington National Cathedral. At the cathedral, he conducted the Cathedral Choirs of Men and Girls, and Men and Boys in daily rehearsals and Evensongs, as well as in the weekend services of Holy Eucharist and Evensong. In addition, under his direction, the cathedral choirs sang for the ordination of the Bishop of Washington, in concerts, recordings, television, and public radio broadcasts, and during a prayer breakfast at the White House in the presence of the President and First Lady. The Cathedral Choir of Men and Girls also sang under his direction for the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists in Philadelphia. In the summer of 2002, he was the conductor of the AmericaFest honor choir and lecturer at the Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music in Minneapolis.
|
|