• Old Choristers' Association

    • Photograph by Peter Backhouse

    The Choir of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, has been described by The Sunday Times as 'one of the UK's finest cathedral choirs'. It is unique in Scotland, in maintaining a daily choral tradition and singing over 250 services every year. The choristers are educated at St Mary's Music School, which acts as the choir school for the cathedral, again unique in Scotland. St Mary's Cathedral became the first in the UK to offer girls scholarships to sing with the boys as trebles in 1978. The lay clerks of the choir consist of undergraduate choral scholars reading a diverse range of subjects at Edinburgh University and more experienced singers.

    The choir broadcasts frequently on BBC Radio 3 and on television, and has made a number of highly acclaimed recordings on the Herald, Lammas, Naxos and Priory labels. It has a busy schedule of concerts and, in recent years, has worked with the King's Consort, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Concert Orchestra, and the BT Scottish Ensemble. The choir regularly works with the Orchestra of St Mary's Music School, performing the Fauré Requiem each Remembrance Sunday, regular performances of Bach cantatas and orchestral masses by Mozart and Haydn. It has toured extensively within recent years to France, Germany, Holland, America and Switzerland. During the Edinburgh International Festival, the choir is in residence, singing the daily services and broadcasting Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3, as well as giving a number of concerts in the Festival Fringe.

    Many leading composers have written for the choir including Kenneth Leighton (three works), Francis Jackson and Francis Grier. Under the present Master of the Music they have premiered a further work by Francis Jackson, works by Richard Allain, Gabriel Jackson, James MacMillan Howard Skempton, Philip Wilby and Hungarian composer Janos Vajda as well as works by younger generation composers.

    Recent and forthcoming highlights include an invitation to give a concert in the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester for broadcast on Radio 3's Choirworks programme, CD recordings, giving the World Premières of Arvo Pärt's Nunc dimittis, and Dave Heath's Requiem both in the presence of the composers during the Edinburgh Festival, and the choristers' participation in the Royal College of Music's production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. In July 2002, the choir toured in Hungary and in March 2003 it toured Norway.

    The Cathedral Organ is a Father Willis, built 1879, for which a detailed specification can be found here.     <top>




    The Fund provides scholarships for choristers to attend St Mary's Music School and also assists very modestly with the funding for the Choir's Lay Clerks.

    The Provost, The Master of the Music and the Bursar of the Fund administer the scholarships. They work closely together in the management and development of this Fund, upon which the future composition and structure of the Cathedral Choir is so dependent. The fund's capital value is now £600,000, which reflects on-going fund-raising and it relies on generous legacies given to ensure that the choral life of the Cathedral continues. The Bursar may be contacted through the Cathedral Office for further information.     <top>




    Currently the Cathedral is running an Appeal to augment the endowment of the Cathedral's Music, following the successful restoration of both the organ and the Song School. 1998 marked the establishment of The Friends of the Music, St Mary's Cathedral. It offers members of the public and those who have an association with the Cathedral's music an opportunity to support it directly, both financially and by their presence. This new initiative is administered by the Cathedral's Music Society.

    Friends receive the following benefits: mailing of information highlighting details of the musical calendar such as All Soul's Day, Holy Saturday, and Festival Events; quarterly updates of events, including a Music List; half price tickets for organ recitals; other discounts on selected concerts promoted by the Cathedral; an annual reception in the Song School and reserved seats at one of the Carol Services.

    By becoming a Friend you will enable direct financial support of the Choral Scholarship Fund, the endowment fund for the Choir, the purchase of music, hire of instrumentalists for special occasions, and other projects which would otherwise not be possible, and appropriate publicity for the Cathedral and its Choir. Patrons receive additional benefits.

    We will be pleased to send you details of the scheme. Contact the Cathedral Office.     <top>


    The Chapter House Singers, formed in 1995, is a group of around 35 amateur singers based at St. Mary's Cathedral. The Musical Director is John Grundy, Director of Music at St. Mary's Music School, and the Singers perform two concerts a year, frequently with orchestra and generally of sacred music.

    The Chapter House Singers have performed music, ranging from Monteverdi, Carissimi and Purcell, to Mozart, Rossini, Brahms, Vaughan Williams and Britten. They sing an equally wide-range of music, from renaissance masses to modern day settings, when they take over sung services in the Cathedral which they do four or five times a year.

    For full details of forthcoming concerts visit the CHS website

    Rehearsals take place on Wednesday evenings at 7.30 p.m. in the Cathedral Song School. Membership is by informal audition and potential new members are always welcomed.

    Anyone interested in joining should contact Anne Milne    <top>




    It was decided to concentrate the resources of the Choir School to form St Mary's Music School. The first instrumentalist pupils were admitted in 1972. Both the choral tradition and the environment of the cathedral are important. The School's patron Yehudi Menuhin, saw this link as being a great asset: instrumentalist gain so much from singing. For this reason the Cathedral Choir was opened to girls of the same age in 1977.


    Old Chorister's Association

    The very first AGM of St Mary's Cathedral Edinburgh, Old Choristers' Association was held on Saturday 24th May at 3pm "within" the Walpole Hall. Present were The Provost, The Very Revd Reginald Foskett, The Organist, Dr Dennis Townhill, the Hon. Secretary, the Hon. Treasurer and some 40 Old Choristers. Also present were the Rev Canon Berriman, Chairman, and Mr F. Hewitt, Secretary of the Federation of Cathedral Old Choristers' Associations. Mr Hewitt addressed the meeting and said how glad he was to be in Scotland, especially at St Mary's. In the forty years in which he had been Secretary of the Federation the number of members had increaed to thirty seven and included one in Wales, two in Ireland, and now our Association in Scotland (this number has increased dramatically over the past 21 years). The three choirs festival held jointly by Edinburgh, Carlisle and Newcastle Catehdrals was an extra assocation and one that should be encouraged to support. He urged all the members present to support at all the times the officers of their assocation. At that meeting, the very first Federation Festival to be held in Edinburgh, the 49th, in the Cathedral's centenary year, 1979, was arranged, and the rest is history.

    We began the Millenium with a new committee and a new vision for the future of our Association. Our Chairman, Eric von Ibler, was Head Chorister, and Lay Clerk and studied Organ under Dennis Townhill. He has taught at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and St Mary's Music School and was a much sought after Singing Teacher and International Adjudicator. Our Secretary, James Milne, was a former Chorister and Choir Librarian, and is now the Assistant Curate at St Mary Magdalene's Episcopal Church, Dundee in the Diocese of Brechin. Other members of the committee include Old Choristers of all eras, our Organist and Master of the Music, Simon Nieminski, and a Choir parent.

    During the year 2000, the new committee organised a variety of social events including three drinks parties in the newly refurbished Song School, a very successful Dinner in the Apex Hotel at which The Revd Reginald Woodward, a former Headmaster of the Choir School spoke, and a reception after the Christmas Carol Service, at the home of the Vice-Provost of the Cathedral, at which a Junior Section was established to provide events specifically aimed at Old Choristers aged 13-16 with Aaron Main as its Leader. Sunday 26 August 2001 will see our Choristers' Valedictory Evensong at 3.30pm which will be followed by a reception in the Resurrection Chapel.

    It is hoped that our new direction will build on the achievements of the past and inspire more Old Choristers to join us and support us more actively, particularly as we prepare to host the Federation Festival in 2002. Those who attended the Federation Festival in 1979, the year of our centenary when Dr Dennis Townhill was Organist and Master of the Choristers, will no doubt agree that few cities in the world have as fine a setting as Edinburgh. In 2002 we have a fantastic programme which we hope will inspire you to join with us.