This year once again we held four choral courses, and we were relieved to be back in Eton for three of them, using at last the full facilities of the extended and improved Music Schools. There were nearly 300 students in all, more students than ever. Each course is run by twelve staff consisting of director, assistant director and accompanist, three full-time singing teacher, and administrator and six assistant music staff to direct consort groups and accompany singing lessons.
Course 1
Ben Parry directed the first course. Ken Burton, the gospel musician, visited to take a most enjoyable workshop session with the full choir. The outside visit was to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, directed by the Musical Director at Jesus College, Tim Byram-Wigfield. The course ended with a most effective live broadcast on Radio 4's Sunday Worship. I directed the next three courses.
Course 2
The second was held in Eton with seventy-nine students. The specialist baroque soprano, Sophie Daneman, gave an excellent master class for solo singers. She herself had been on a course in 1982. We visited Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, for Evensong with music ably and sensitively directed by Stephen Darlington, and we broadcast Evensong live on Radio 3 on the last day.
Course 3
The third course, with 82 students, was the largest we have ever had. This was the course which was designated an organists' course, and David Goode was engaged as a full-time member of staff to teach them, with Tom Trotter visiting for a day. The main visit was for Evensong in King's College Chapel, Cambridge, directed by Stephen Cleobury. David Trendell, Director of Studies in Music at King's College, London, gave an excellent session on the Bach Motet, Der Geist hilft.
Course 4
The fourth course was held in Malvern College as part of the Worcester Cathedral Three Choirs' Festival. The festival is now 275 years old, the oldest music festival in the world. This is the first time that a course has prepared a public recital as the main event of the course, and this was held in the magnificent Tewkesbury Abbey. Tom Winpenny was the organist, and we prepared a full recital programme. There were sixty students on this course, and the choir they formed looked magnificent on the raked seating provided by the crossing of the Abbey. In the middle of the recital the choir lined the length of the nave on each side, winding between the huge Norman pillars, to sing two pieces by Thomas Tallis, Miserere Nostri and O Salutaris Hostia. The recital had been sold out a month before, and it was very exciting for the course, who had only known each other for a week, to sing to 800 people in such a grand setting. The following day we sang Evensong in Worcester Cathedral.
Next Year: 2003
There have now been sixty courses since they started in Uppingham in 1980, and they have gradually grown from the thirty students who attended that course. Next year we have decided that in order to accommodate the constantly increasing demand, we shall increase to five courses. Three courses will be held in Eton, one in Edinburgh with recitals and services in St. Mary's and St. Giles' Cathedrals and one elsewhere, possibly in Cranleigh.
