Exclusive: Cambridge college sacks choir
NewsSt John’s Cambridge has told members of its mixed choir St John’s Voices that their group is to be abolished and their director of music, Graham Walker, made redundant.
The measure will take effect at the end of next term.
Apparently, the Master of the college Heather Hancock, a former civil servant, has decided there is no need for a mixed choir now that the main college choir has girl choristers and female altos.
St John’s Voices, however, has status and renown across the music industry, with many recordings and tours to its credit.
Its abolition may well trigger resistance of the kind that recently saved the BBC Singers.
A disgraceful piece of musical vandalism.
SJV developed quickly into a superb choir thanks to Graham Walker’s devoted and dedicated work.He has served Johns faithfully since he sang for George Guest as a boy and then as a Choral Scholar.
The incoming Dean of Chapel arrives next term. Presumably she has been involved in this decision?
Looking at St John’s Voices (“SJV”) website, and also checking the online service sheet for St John’s College Chapel, much as it is a great shame if SJV is to be cut, this story maybe isn’t quite as dramatic as it at first sounds, and maybe we have largely only heard one side of the issue. And whatever is happening, it perhaps doesn’t merit drawing a parallel to the recent debacle with the BBC Singers (a fulltime, professional, choir, paid for by the BBC licence fee and performing at the highest professional level).
Prelims: I have no axe to grind either for the college, or for St John’s Voices. I have simply tried to see the situation from both sides, and I have no inside info on any possible politics that may have gone on behind the scenes (though it seems a tad unlikely that this closure will have come as a total surprise to SJV’s salaried musical director).
Finance everywhere in music, and that includes universities, is being squeezed and it’s no great surprise to find a college which must spend hundreds of thousands supporting its world-famous choir trimming what is very much its secondary choir (for despite SJV’s website referring to the renowned Choir of St John’s College as “our sister choir”, SJV surely does not really approach that level, musically or reputationally). Although SJV is voluntary, it must nonetheless cost the college significant sums, what with paying a salary to its director, delivering free singing lessons to its members, paying its running expenses, etc. Presumably the college looked at what this choir contributes to college and chapel life, and what benefits it brings to students at St John’s (rather than to students from the wider university who may have joined SJV, rather than – or perhaps in addition to – their own college choir), and set against that costs and other factors.
There is no shortage of good chapel choirs for students at Cambridge to join. Indeed, it is increasingly muttered around the choral world that the high entrance standards to gain a place at Cambridge (as high as 3 x A* at A-level appears to be the going rate for many subjects, and even then that’s no guarantee of getting a place, plus potential choral and organ scholars no longer being given the ”golden ticket” that in past times was allegedly sometimes quietly issued when students didn’t quite meet the academic entrance criteria), make it harder and harder to recruit excellent choral and organ scholars for those choirs. So members of SJV will probably be welcomed with open arms at other colleges (and anyway – see below – not all members of SJV seem to be members of St John’s College).
According to SJV’s own website, membership of SJV is voluntary, and (this may be a significant factor not really in this thread much discussed) is open to all members of the university, ie SJV may not be exclusively populated by students of St John’s. Indeed, glancing at the SJV website, of the three singer profiles, two of those three singers seem to be drawn from other colleges. Maybe everyone else in SJV is a student at St John’s but, if so, with its website SJV does itself no favours. So the college might also have looked at how many choir members drawn from its own college it is supporting, examined the costs per student, set that against that the benefit to the college and the benefit to those college students, and worked out that the money could be more beneficially or effectively allocated. But that is supposition, and perhaps someone from SJV can give the true stats as to membership from within the college (and maybe even state what the full costs of running this choir actually are).
SJV’s contribution to St John’s College seems to be predominantly the provision of choral music for one evensong each week, on Mondays (a day which in many cathedrals is otherwise a “dead” day for music as, after a busy weekend, many choirs – and directors of music – have earned a day off). So this closure of SJV will be the loss of music at one service each week. In past years Mondays at St John’s apparently had a said evensong, so it could be argued that this is simply a return, after a decade of SJV, to the former status quo.
By the by, if their website is accurate, SJV’s claims of a significant recorded profile is not really borne out. SJV appear to have made two commercial recordings across their eleven years, both available on Naxos (maybe there are more, but they are not listed on the SJV website). One is of music by William Matthias, the other – a recording in which they combined with the much longer-established Cambridge University Chamber Choir – is of music by Chesnokov.
For the avoidance of doubt, St John’s Voices is NOT the world-renowned Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, whose top line continues to be filled by trebles and sopranos aged around 8-13, with a top-drawer student backrow (now including female altos). The director of music of that world-famous choir is Christopher Gray: whilst the flak is being directed at the Master of the college (in defence of whom, there are more than a few masters/mistresses of Cambridge colleges who have come to Cambridge after holding high office in the civil service, and some of them have proved to be rather successful in their Cambridge jobs), Mr Gray will presumably also have been part of the consultation. SJV’s director is Graham Walker, who also holds the perhaps rather more time-consuming post of director of music at Emmanuel College: he is also musical director of the New Cambridge Singers.
Cambridge is brim-full of fine choirs for undergraduates – virtually every college has its own college choir, offering the opportunity for both male and female undergraduate and graduate singers, and most colleges welcome singers from other colleges to swell their numbers: so singers from SJV will probably be welcomed by any of those excellent choirs (i.e. Trinity, Clare and Caius have earned significant recorded reputations over the last couple of decades, though the differently constituted choirs of St John’s and King’s, with 9-13 year-olds on their top lines, still maintain their deserved standings, but every college seems to list a chapel choir).
So much as it’s a great shame if St John’s College has decided that funding a second chapel choir is superfluous to requirements, it doesn’t look as if there is going to be a huge hole in university musical life, nor will members of SJV be lacking in opportunities to sing in high-level choirs at several dozen other colleges, let alone all the student-led performances which occur virtually every day of term. There is a ton of live music going on in the university.
I write simply as someone who sees (and has to react to) cuts in musical budgets everywhere, almost every day, whether in professional or education surroundings, so it isn’t such a surprise to hear of another cut, even if this particular one seems to have gained a lot of traction today. And of course it’s a great shame if this choir is indeed being cut. But there are some far bigger survival battles currently to fight in UK music.
Lots of “must,” “maybe,” and “presumably” comments.
I find the comments to be reassuring.
This prolix splurge of pompous nonsense from a self-styled arts administrator demonstrates so clearly why the arts in this country in such trouble. God help us if we have to rely on such people. A bit like ENO telling people not to come to Jenufa.
A rather long reply from an anonymous “UK Arts Administrator” adding nothing to the debate and simply trying to minimise the event. While it might not appear important in terms of the British music scene….it is important to those people who value SJVs and wish to hear it continue.
St John’s college chapel choir only takes girl choristers and women altos. Therefore adult women sopranos at St John’s have had their opportunities limited- what is that saying to the girl choristers there? Secondly: Many good singers in Cambridge cannot give the time commitment to chapel choirs and so they are looking for a decent choir that is not so demanding on their schedule. There really aren’t that many choirs with a dedicated, paid conductor in Cambridge that can provide this opportunity- especially ones which do recordings. Finally, St John’s has an £800 million endowment. They do not need to scrimp and save on something that enriches the student experience.
Let’s address each part of your comment.
“It seems a tad unlikely that this closure will have come as a total surprise to SJV’s salaried musical director”: How do you know?
“For despite SJV’s website referring to the renowned Choir of St John’s College as “our sister choir”, SJV surely does not really approach that level, musically or reputationally”: How do you know? Have you attended their Evensongs and concerts? Have you listened to their recordings? Is an Arts Administrator qualified to pass musical criticism?
“Members of SJV will probably be welcomed with open arms at other colleges”: Not all members of SJV can commit to the busy schedule of most college choirs. Not all college choirs have places for more members.
“The money could be more beneficially or effectively allocated.”: Yes, instead of Anglican worship in the chapel, the college is now funding “exciting programs for civic engagement and understanding faith” to take place “in that space”.
“In past years Mondays at St John’s apparently had a said evensong, so it could be argued that this is simply a return, after a decade of SJV, to the former status quo.”: And the former status quo is better how?
“SJV appear to have made two commercial recordings across their eleven years”: In fact they were recording a third CD just last week; this information is literally written in bright red bold font on the homepage of their webpage. And this is for a choir who rehearses once a week in term time and sings once a week in term time; six times less than St John’s College Choir. Wikipedia says SJCC records two CDs a year. If SJCC were to only have 1/6 of the time to sing and rehearse like SJV, then they would record an average of 22/6 = about 3 CDs in 11 years. This is the same amount as SJV, and SJCC is supposed to be older, better funded, and “world-renowned”.
Your next paragraph has no bearing to the entire argument so I have no comment.
“It doesn’t look as if there is going to be a huge hole in university musical life”: I’m not so sure about that when, for example, SJV’s concert in Michaelmas 2023 was a sold-out event and filled the entirety of St John’s chapel.
“[Walker] is also musical director of the New Cambridge Singers.”: he is no longer in this position, as a Google search will tell you.
“Nor will members of SJV be lacking in opportunities to sing in high-level choirs at several dozen other colleges”: ditto.
“There are some far bigger survival battles currently to fight in UK music”: so let’s not fight this one.
Your entire comment also ignores the main issue of female soprano students, from John’s or other colleges, having no opportunity to sing in St John’s College Chapel.
Are the BBC Singers really surviving or just existing?
Strange question – what do you mean? I would say they are now thriving, judging by recent concerts and reviews.
I don’t quite get it. Is it that the boys from the choir school have been stopped, so the all male choir has gone mixed, and so they now have two mixed choirs. And so there’s no particular need for two choirs so they are getting rid of one of them.
Well if that’s the situation then it sort of makes sense. It’s not as if there is a shortage of chapel choirs in Cambridge. One mixed choir per college is probably enough.
But is the story that they have abolished the boy choristers ?
No. But there will no longer be an opportunity for adult sopranos to sing at John’s, or for anyone to have the opportunity to sing there at a high level with a lower time commitment. It serves a useful function, as does the similar choir at King’s, in providing a choir on the main choir’s rare days off. It’s a strange move. It certainly isn’t redundant, nor is the college short of money.
The College Choir (the all-male choir you refer to) is indeed now mixed: choristers are boys and girls, and there are *up to* three spots for female altos among the ley clerks.
The tragedy comes from the sudden disbanding of the only other opportunity for female singers – and the only opportunity for female sopranos – to sing in a religious chapel setting at St John’s College; the political manouvering and lack of real consultation and transparency with which the decision has been made; and the loss of a very high quality choir and community.
Where are the sopranos to go then. Not on.
It’s all very sad and regrettable. But honestly there has never been any shortage of excellent singing groups of all styles, sizes and competence in Cambridge. And I go back to late 60s!
It’s an odd decision. But sopranos (and other voices) can sing in other college choirs. There is much choral movement between Cambridge colleges.
So you too would just sack one? So easy to destroy talents. Brava!
Hi Nevis, no, as the article clearly states, this article is about the axing of St John’s second choir, St John’s Voices (SJV). It is a choir held in high regard both within the university and nationally, with the broadcasts and albums to show for it in its decade-long existence. Boy choristers still exist in the chapel choir alongside girls now, but as for current woman members of the college, sopranos no longer have a place to sing.
St John’s choir has three alto lay clerks (male and female) and will lose over 15 female places in StJohn’s Voices. Shutting down opportunities for women’s voices. Why apply to StJohn’s if you’re a female singer?
St John’s isn’t a music school.
Did Heather Hancock seek ANY advice on this, I wonder? The decision shows a total lack of understanding of the history and purposes of these choirs. She clearly doesn’t understand that choral music written for SATB inhabits a totally different world from music written for trebles and back row. I can’t imagine anyone making such a decision based on gender and economics, even a “former civil servant”.
“choral music written for SATB inhabits a totally different world from music written for trebles and back row.”
I’d tend to disagree here. Whilst there is some music that is a little more suited to adult sopranos and female altos, and some a little more suited to male altos and trebles, on the whole the treble boys (and now girls) of St John’s College Choir are entirely capable of singing anything that an adult choir can sing. (Which is kinda the whole point of a high-level choir of this sort.)
“choral music written for SATB inhabits a totally different world from music written for trebles and back row.”
I’d tend to disagree here. Whilst there is some music that is a little more suited to adult sopranos and female altos, and some a little more suited to male altos and trebles, on the whole the treble boys (and now girls) of St John’s College Choir are entirely capable of singing anything that an adult choir can sing. (Which is kinda the whole point of a high-level choir of this sort.)
“choral music written for SATB inhabits a totally different world from music written for trebles and back row.”
I take some issue with this… whilst there are plenty of exceptions of music that is better sung by adult sopranos or female altos, and music that is better sung by trebles and male altos, on the whole the highly skilled trebles (boy and now girl) of a choir like St John’s College can sing pretty much anything an adult choir can (which is rather the whole point of the incredible choral education….)
Sure, the choir of St John’s College isn’t going to make a very good fist of, say, a Verdi Requiem; but then, neither would a choir like St John’s Voices really…
I agree – although no need to make the same point three times!
“A former civil servant”.
‘Nuff said.
Exactly! This is and outrageous decision.
Absolutely shocked and outraged that a fine choir has been treated like this. This action hearkens back to the mid-1950’s when John’s proposed to dump the entire chapel choir and George Guest came to the rescue. And we all know how that ended. Shame on St. John’s!!!
Yes – they proposed shutting it down again when he retired! We know how that went too…
No, there was never any talk of shutting down the choir after George Guest. It was world-famous by that point.
Amusingly, when GG retired his successor, Christopher Robinson, was required to set up the choir became SJV – in the interests of giving the women in College a place to sing.
“Heather Hancock a former civil servant”… there’s your reason why the choir is being scrapped right there. A bean counter. Knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Not all civil servants are philistines, despite the OPs clear intention that you thought that way.
Silly question, but, aren’t these choirs essentially voluntary choirs? (I mean St John’s Voices, not the St John’s College Choir!!)
Why do they need to be “fired?”
They usually serve a purpose in providing occasional respite for the professional choir, singing at services the main choir is unable to.
The only person being fired is presumably the conductor?
No silly questions! SJV is voluntary for singers, with a paid conductorship. The conductor is being fired, and the choir’s weekly evensong taken away, to be replaced by a “quiet night”. The College Choir’s services will continue exactly as before.
Seems a bit unnecessary.
Sounds like the clergy just want a night off? Typical clergy… You know, the choir is perfectly capable of doing evensong without any clergy…
Nonsense. As the college waits for the newly appointed Dead of Chapel to arrive, the only clergy present is the chaplain, and he most certainly wouldn’t countenance a choir being abolished so he could have night off.
There was a time when Heads of Cambridge colleges were appointed after a long and distinguished academic career, particularly in the three Royal Foundations of King’s Trinity and St John’s. Now it seems these have become a retirement home for senior bureaucrats.
Another clueless moron in charge with zero experience. They think by doing something radical like this they will be seen as a force not to be reckoned with. Not the case. That moron will be seen a the idiot who did away with such a fantastic musical organisation.
Good Luck. I hope that someone sees sense before it’s too late.
The fact St John’s already has a choir is irrelevant, whether it now has girl choristers or not. Singing in a choir has manifold musical, social and health benefits and not everyone at John’s who wants to sing can sing in the chapel choir – that goes for similar colleges at Cambridge, Oxford, Durham and so on. The Master should reconsider this philistine decision.
I agree that secondary choirs are incredibly important for cathedrals and colleges. Not every service can be sung by the main choir, so having a second choir available is firstly practical.
Secondly, these secondary choirs rarely cost much at all. They are voluntary – as confirmed by above poster – and so are a wonderful bit of community building etc.
Thirdly – they are voluntary. People clearly want to sing in them, and people wanting to sing is surely only a good thing. Not everyone who wants to sing is capable/has the time to be able to sing in one of the myriad busier choirs in Oxbridge; choirs like St John’s Voices might not be as “famous” but are just as important a part of the ecosystem as the biggies.
It seems a strange decision.
One expects the decision is purely financial – “we need to make some cuts so let’s cut the meagre conductors salary” – dressed up with some not-very-convincing argument about “now we have girls, we don’t need women…”
Alternatively, as mentioned above Mondays at St John’s now become a quiet night. Is evening prayer still said? Or did the clergy and staff want a night off? Can save a few more pennies, not having a precentor on call, not having a verger, not having to open the doors…. not really the point of a chapel though, is it?
What a disappointing and shortsighted decision. The introduction of girl choristers and female altos at St John’s does not necessitate the culling of St John’s Voices which provides exceptional experiences for young musicians and audiences around the world, and meets a different need (& demand!). A step backwards for St John’s.
She should be ashamed of herself. Disgraceful.
Absolutely stupid decision. Everyone knows the value of singing in a choir.It helps to promote good social skills, mental health benefits and self discipline.
I sincerely hope that the choir members give that self serving idiot a run for their money. Who needs fools like this anyway?
Please guard against silly web-lynching on the basis of very partial information. For a start, being an ex-civil servant is not a sensible criticism. The civil service produces large numbers of very capable people who can run complex organisations in difficult circumstances. Similarly, being an ex business leader does not mean one is automatically good or bad. And given the widespread criticism of arts managers on this site, we clearly cannot expect that to be a foolproof recruiting ground.
Let’s take time to hear the facts before judging HH or St John’s.
Please! Let us protest this so as to change the minds of those who made this unwise decision!
As a Cambridge graduate, I can’t see any reason why any student should apply to a Cambridge College these days. Choirs and anglican choral singing are under constant attack, as is freedom of speech, academic freedom, and, above all, excellence in any field. And it’s an idiotic idea appointing non-academics to be college principals. Time and again it’s led to disaster.
John, as a serving fellow of an Oxford college, I can say with confidence that there are some examples of excellent and not quite so excellent heads of house from both civil service, and academia. It is the person, not the background, that counts.
Heather Hancock apparently owns a 1500 acre grouse moor in North Yorkshire.
Good for her. What is your point?
Given that she’s loaded, if she cared about providing singing opportunities for female singers, she could easily afford to fund the annual salary of the conductor she’s just sacked. So could St Johns College itself. This decision makes no sense at all unless she’s completely opposed to classical and church music.
So, of course this makes her competent to judge the value if this fine choir! Perhaps she has a brace or three iof fine birds from her flock that she feels should be given the opportunity to replace the young women who have been singing in this choir. After all, the grouse would happily sing for the cost of a few handfuls of birdseed as, apparently, should the very capable conductor has raised both the standards and profile of this choir.
Another attempt to undermine classical music at its best. St John’s should be proud of the singers and ashamed of the Philistine attempt to axe a Centre of excellence. Marilyn Billingham
Just one more shocking decision by a once great college which, under the new regime, seems to promote bureaucracy over all else…I wonder what this money has been used for instead? Consultancy fees?
This is a tremendous blow to choral singing.
I think that is totally out of order!
In this dreadful world in which we live there should always be room for a group of talented singers such as these.
It’s preposterous to think there will be an out pouring of fury over this. ENO or the BBC, which is state funded ( BBC with the addition of funding through the TV license ) is accountable to the nation and the mismanagement or the craziness of policy needs to highlighted and objected to if it is not in the public interest. This niche choir from a private education and elite establishment is run at the whim of the university. It is of no real interest to the general public. The whole premise of the choir’s existence is pretty much redundant. The college is right to move on and put investment in better causes.
Respectfully, considering the likes of Hilary Hahn, Marian Alsop, and Rev’nd Rowan Williams have now signed an open letter calling for its reinstatement, it is safe to say that there has been an ‘outpouring of fury.’ Oxbridge is one of the UKs key international commodities so decisions there impact the national interest most certainly.
Petition now over 13000 and rising fast.
I guess whatever we say, the college strikes again. This is call for us all to review our engagement to our college and how we want it to be remembered
All ex civil servant appointed to any organisation always leads to it’s eventual downgrading to mediocrity and total failure.
Its a case of mediocre grammar too.
It had been set up as a St John’s college choir but over the years most members were neither college members nor even students.
This is an amateur choir primarily to provide a platform for those members of college not good enough to audition and sing with the chapel choir.
It is hardly a comparison with the ‘professionals’ within the college and certainly not the same as the BBC Singers.
And this validates the decision?
You’ve obviously not heard them.
The whole point is that adult sopranos and all but (at the very most) 3 female altos aren’t *able* to audition and sing with the chapel choir. But hey, let’s snub them anyway.
Voluntary service choirs supply a useful addition to the main choir who welcome a break from the increasing commitment to divine services. They also give opportunities to ordinary singers who appreciate the practice for Anglican Choral singing with a professional conductor which is otherwise not open to them. I speak from experience (though not at Cambridge). It is the redundancy of the conductor we should be especially sorry for.
Anthony
What a mean decision. Adult female singers don’t have equal access to choral opportunities and this reduces them further.
Whether or not this choir in itself is important in the grand scheme of things, moves like this are the thin end of the wedge for choral and classical music in education and more widely. If the music/education sector doesn’t push back, more and more choirs, orchestras, music series etc will be gradually cut in favour of other things
I note there’s still no mention of this on St John’s College website on 20 March. Still promoting SJV – and basking in the glory of the achievement and opportunities it has given.
I wonder also if the College has made/will make “economies” with its cellars of wines and spirits for quaffing at High Table.
There will be anti-western, anti-Christian, racist, left-wing wokery at work here somewhere. We are at war.
Typical bean counter. Insists on running college as a business. King’s also going same way,losing loyal servants hand over fist. History and tradition mean nothing to beaurocrats.
All music-making should be encouraged and supported, even by those who have little appreciation of it. Teamwork, striving for excellence, learning new skills, friendship…all this comes with being in a choir, and is to be valued, as well as the music.
To be clear, nobody knows the true answer to why this decision was taken. Also, strictly speaking, the decision seems to have been taken collectively by the College Council rather than any one particular individual, although the College Council is obviously led by the Master.
This particular Master has been in post ever since the previous (very supportive) Master died, about four years ago. I’m led to understand that she has never attended any services, concerts, events or rehearsals with SJV and has shown little obvious interest in informing herself about them and what they do and how they do it.
For balance, it has to be said that, under this Master’s leadership, support for the “actual” College Choir (i.e. the world-famous St John’s College Choir) has also been somewhat shallow beyond the fact that they are (justifiably) world-famous. The move to gender parity in the (child) chorister ranks in the “actual” College Choir has of course been admirable, and long overdue, and in itself it’s also a positive move that spaces in the choir for altos are now explicitly open to (adult) singers regardless of their gender. But there is clearly no understanding (or at least, worse, no acknowledgement) among the College’s management that providing openings for perhaps three women, all of them singing alto, by no means constitutes providing equal quality-choral-singing opportunities for all of the student body, especially if only one of those three female altos happens to be a St John’s student. “We don’t need two mixed choirs” is blatantly false.
As it happens, this is of course a conundrum for all choral foundations which feature child choristers. There are now cathedral choirs which unapologetically maintain two sets of child-chorister trebles (or indeed one unified mixed-sex set) while also regularly featuring under their umbrella at least some all-adult SATB services with adult sopranos from the “expanded choir” pool of deputies and extra singers. As it happens, these past couple of years St John’s has been THE ONLY Cambridge college which has provided very-high-quality regular choral-singing opportunities for boys and girls and men and women, precisely thanks to having its two choirs: the “actual” College Choir on the one hand (with boys-and-girls-together and men plus a couple of women on alto), and St John’s Voices on the other hand (an all-adult mixed choir).
One should not speculate, and I stress that I may be completely wrong, but it is hinted that the idea of making adult sopranos and boy-and-girl child choristers sing together as one section as a matter of course may have been seriously mooted at some point for the “actual” College Choir. (That might sound ideal to those who have little or no knowledge or understanding of choirs or music or education or safeguarding, but is fraught with logistical nightmares; if it worked, everybody would be doing it…) Again, I may be completely wrong, but I understand that some might have felt it preferable to “solve” the chorister gender parity issue by getting rid of child choristers altogether. Admittedly, that is an idea which some in the choral community seem to favour, but it would in fact be a colossal mistake for the general music-educational and long-term-individual-developmental ecosystem, particularly if applied to one of the very finest teams of child choristers in the entire world. Bear in mind also that the “actual” College Choir and SJV have never been in opposition: they have always actively supported each other, and rightly so…
Moral of the story: nobody should be naive enough about their responsibilities to take on the burden of running a university college without genuinely appreciating and understanding what the college is and how delicate and fragile and vulnerable to (mis)managerial abuse it will prove to be, and that destroyed institutions and reputations take decades to recover. The strength of feeling from so many in the musical community all around the world about this should give them cause to take a look at themselves, but the “executive management” class are no longer accustomed to recognising their own accountability to the rest of us, and that is to the massive detriment of the very notion of collegiality. Feudalism is back.
I should point out that I am not a Johnian nor a regular member of St John’s Voices, but the professional-musical ecosystem in “the greater Cambridge area” is close-knit, and we all talk to each other. I have joined St John’s Voices as an extra singer on a couple of occasions, namely for their Chesnokov recording project in 2022 and for the Golovanov recording project which has been in planning ever since and finally happened from 16th to 18th March: one the most extraordinary recording sessions I have ever been involved in. This very nearly had to be abandoned at a couple of weeks’ notice when the Director of St John’s Voices was instructed to dismiss several of the regular members of the choir with immediate effect. (From year to year the core of the choir was ALWAYS current St John’s students, and they ALWAYS had priority in gaining places, but the remaining places went to those from the wider musical ecosystem of Cambridge who would most benefit from involvement and were most keen to be involved.) But there was a stay of execution until after the recording project was completed. So the regular singers already knew that some of them were about to be ejected from the choir against the Director’s will, but at the end of the recording it was left to the Director himself to break it to them that after the next term the choir would be completely shut down, and that he had been told this on the day of the pre-recording concert (last Thursday) but had had no choice but to keep it from them until the recording was over. And all along, these past eleven years, the Director of St John’s Voices has run it exactly as encouraged by the PREVIOUS Master, who engaged his services to establish and run an all-adult mixed-sex choir, parallel to the “actual” College Choir, in the first place.
I know one shouldn’t get personal about these things, but the Director is himself a St John’s alumnus and was himself a St John’s chorister and choral scholar, and has been part of the broader St John’s family since he was four (which happens to be when we first met, in Kindergarten!). I might not be an SJV regular or indeed a Johnian, but this whole episode is profoundly traumatic and a classic example of the worst side of institutions, as indeed is the fact that they put the official announcement in the name of the College’s (and “actual” College Choir’s) recently-arrived Director of Music, although one can only assume that his hands were tied. One can also only presume that this decision had to be rushed through before the arrival of the next Dean of Chapel, who is currently Canon Precentor at York Minster and herself a keen singer and supporter of high-quality choral music. One can only guess that she would not have been very happy about the decision to axe the College’s high-quality all-adult mixed choir, to say the least…
Now I shall be quiet.
Just as sad, according to the Telegraph:
“The college will also cut down on the number of chapel services held at St John’s to use the space for “civic engagement”.”
Does that mean fewer choral services sung by the College Choir? How terribly sad if so.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/19/cambridge-st-johns-college-church-choir-axed-diverse-genres/
Sad for St John’s Voices, but let’s put the blame firmly where it belongs: on the idiotic decision to abolish the venerable all-male tradition in the main Chapel choir. Given this travesty, which never should have happened, Heather Hancock does have a point.
What they should do, but since we live in insane times probably never will, is restore the ancient and beloved all-male model for the main Choir; then there would be a stronger case for preserving St John’s Voices.
Illogical decision.
The decision will not have been taken recently as the wheels turn very slowly. This raises the question of whether Andrew Nethsingha was in fact involved in the decision and what advice he passed to the Master or college council. As noted above, this wasn’t a decision of one person.
There seems to be no practical reason to disband the choir especially as they have considerable support but the decision also came as a result of the opinion of students. How many is a question unlikely to be answered.
What word from the fellows in music at the college?
Selfish tin-eared decision. As too often by a person knowing the cost of everything but the value of nothing. She and the College should be thoroughly ashamed
Not only is the decision disgusting but the high handed way the College has taken over the choir’s social media accounts: absolutely disgraceful behaviour. Thank goodness the horse has bolted…