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The Choir
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."
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