Late in 1918, a meeting took place between W.E. Morgan, headmaster of Westminster Abbey Choir School; R.H. Couchman, headmaster of St Paul's Cathedral Choir School, and C.R. Jelf, headmaster of King's College School, Cambridge. They were concerned that new government legislation designed to raise standards in schools, in particular the Fisher Education Act, would threaten the survival of many of the independent establishments that educated the choristers of the UK's cathedrals and collegiate chapels. Choirs had already suffered as a result of the First World War, after which cathedrals had been forced to mount a robust defence of the principle of employing boys to sing in choral foundations in response to a clause in the 1918 legislation. The law prohibited any child under the age of 12 from being paid to sing, play or perform, and imposed restrictions on the employment in performance of children under 14.
The case for exemption of choral foundations from the legislation was successfully made. The three headmasters who met at Westminster Abbey Choir School were not unduly schools – but they felt that many smaller and more remote choir schools, and the cathedrals whose choristers they educated, probably needed support in meeting the challenges of a changing social and educational environment. ‘By the conclusion of the meeting’, writes Alan Mould, a former headmaster of St John's College School, Cambridge, in The English Chorister, ‘they had agreed a simple resolution “that in view of the urgent educational requirements of the present time a Choir Schools’ Association (CSA) be formed at once”.’
CSA Today
The association now embraces 46 schools attached to cathedrals, churches and college chapels, including: St Patrick's Cathedral Choir School, Dublin; St Thomas Choir School, New York; and The Cathedral Grammar School, Christchurch, New Zealand; as well as state and independent, preparatory and senior, day and boarding schools in England, Scotland and Wales. Three are specialist music schools: Wells Cathedral School, St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh, and Chetham's in Manchester, where new headteacher Alun Jones, a singer himself, has plans to enhance provision for choristers. One, Bristol Cathedral Choir School, has its roots in the medieval era and still uses some of the monastic buildings, but reinvented itself in 2008 as a non-selective academy specialising in music; it has now set up its own new feeder primary school.
The most obvious change that has taken place since the formation of the CSA is that the choristers educated in member schools now include girls. The requirement for their general education to keep in step with that of their nonchorister contemporaries means that the school day is rarely punctuated by morning services as it would have been a hundred years ago, but the demands of recording (to phenomenally high standards) and foreign touring have been added to their packed schedules. The complexities of modern family life may also take their toll; parents often face competing demands from their own jobs, the needs of the chorister's siblings and the routines of the choir.
As a result, the welfare of those educated in choir schools continues to be a priority for the CSA. In many respects the challenges facing the schools themselves are as significant today as they were in 1918: the changing place of the Church of England in society (although that is offset to some extent by the growing popularity of cathedral as opposed to parish liturgy); previous governments’ attitudes to independent education; current government hostility to the arts in state education; issues around safeguarding; and of course the perennial problem of funding.
The CSA is also responsible for administering the government's Choir School Scholarship Scheme, and thanks to the generosity of its supporters over the years the CSA is an important – though limited – source of bursaries for potential choristers whose families would not otherwise be able to afford the cost of their school fees, uniforms or other incidental expenses. Despite the financial challenge presented by this, the association is keen to ensure that the opportunities offered by choristerships are accessible to all children, regardless of their circumstances, and much of its activity over the past decade or more has been directed towards outreach.
MT readers may be familiar with the early CSA projects that linked groups of cathedral choristers with their local primary schools. These projects were given a vital shot in the arm by seven years of government support – in England at least – through the Sing Up programme; the projects expanded rapidly and now continue in many different guises all over the country, though each now has to be funded by the schools or cathedrals themselves, in partnership with music hubs, trusts or sponsors.
© Jamie Wright
While recruitment for the cathedral or chapel choirstalls is an element in outreach work, the majority of children from participating schools do not take that route. They and their teachers benefit, however, from the expertise of cathedral musicians such as Nia Llewelyn Jones at Gloucester, who runs massed singing days for local schools and trains the cathedral's Junior Choir; Tom Daggett at St Paul's, who bridges the musical gap between the wealth of the City of London and the children of inner city boroughs; Cathy Lamb at Lichfield, who works all over the West Midlands and beyond; and the large team responsible for the vast singing programme run by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Leeds.
Paul Smith, headmaster of Hereford Cathedral School and the current chairman of the CSA, spoke movingly in his keynote speech at last month's centenary conference of the Christmas carol service organised by his school for hundreds of junior school pupils from across Herefordshire. Hereford's director of music, David Evans, supports their teachers in preparing them to sing in the service at the cathedral. The highlight for the pupils, Smith said, is the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’: ‘It is fantastic to see the concentration and focus on the faces of some 400 primary school pupils belting out Handel's masterpiece.’
As he prepares to hand over the chairmanship to Neil Chippington of St John's College School, Cambridge, Smith is clear about the role of the CSA in the 21st century. ‘We have to support those struggling to keep music alive in the hearts and minds of young people. We are expertly placed to do so, with hundreds of years of choral tradition behind us.’
