Lincoln Cathedral Choir Association

 
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The Choir

AllChoir2.jpg (27303 bytes)

(photograph by Dick Makin)

The member of the Cathedral Chapter who oversees the choir is the Precentor, Revd Canon Gavin Kirk. He works closely with the Director of Music, Aric Prentice, and the Assistant Director of Music, Charles Harrison, as well as the cathedral organists.

The Director of Music supervises the activities of the music department, and is responsible for the choice of music that is sung and played at cathedral services and concerts. He also oversees the recruitment of new choristers, and the training and development of the choir.

In addition to the boy and girl choristers, there are ten lay vicars (singing men), who supply the alto, tenor and bass parts.

The choir sings evensong every day (except Wednesday) during term time, the Eucharist on Sundays and major festivals and a number of special services. Most services take place in St Hugh's Choir, as shown in the photograph below.

The choir rehearses twice a day, before and after school, and has a repertoire which extends from early plainsong, through William Byrd (Lincoln's most famous organist) to contemporary composers such as Tavener and Pärt. There are numerous recordings available on CD, and the BBC broadcasts Evensong from Lincoln Cathedral regularly.

Tours are arranged both within the United Kingdom and abroad.

The Boys and Girls share the normal Cathedral services, generally alternating days. On special occasions and major festivals they usually sing together. Normally the men (Lay Vicars) sing with the Boys and the Girls.

The Choir specialises in the sacred choral repertoire, including Renaissance polyphony, Victorian choral works by composers such as Stanford, Ireland and Wood, and in twentieth century English composers including Tavener and Britten.

 

On 8 Dec 2009 Tom Service of the BBC recorded the girl choristers singing Evensong and interviewed the girls and the Director of Music, Aric Prentice, for the BBC Radio 3 Music Matters programme, and he had this to say:

" Choral evensong is one of England's richest traditions. I didn't think I liked its austerity, until the sound of a few choristers in Lincoln Cathedral created a minor musical miracle. I'm mostly allergic to the austere Anglican charms of choral evensong  when I hear it broadcast on the wireless. But when you see this intimate performance live,  in one of our great cathedrals, it's a completely different experience. Walking into Lincoln cathedral, out of the rain and cold yesterday, after a miserable pilgrimage up Lincoln's Steep Hill - well named, the only significant contour for miles and miles around in Lincolnshire's relentless flatness - this astonishing medieval building hosted its girls' choir singing Monday's Evensong with the Cathedral's director of music, Aric Prentice. The way the sounds of their few voices carried in Lincoln's transcendent architecture and massive acoustic was miraculous; every note shimmered with a halo of resonance.

I didn't grow up with the rituals of Anglican liturgy, so the mysteries of the responses and the rituals of when you're supposed to stand up and sit down again somewhat escaped me, but the choir's performance of a Stanford anthem and their sensitive singing of the Psalms, were minor musical miracles in the cathedral's gigantic space.

Only a handful of Lincolners were in the audience - a few of the girls' parents, mostly - but there was a moving sense of the service being part of the centuries-old musical traditions of the Cathedral. William Byrd is one of Prentice's musical ancestors - he was organist in Lincoln from 1563 to 1572; if I lived in Lincoln, or next to one of our other great cathedrals, I reckon evensong could become a regular musical ritual. It's one of the England's richest heritages - a living tradition that costs precisely nothing to experience live."

 

 

Read more about the History of the Choir at Lincoln Cathedral

 

 

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