John Rutter savages St John’s Cambridge
NewsMessage from the famed choral composer:
Even the most enlightened institution can sometimes make mistakes, and St John’s College Cambridge – with which I’ve enjoyed a cordial relationship for many years – has just made a huge one. It has announced that it will be closing down its ‘Monday choir’, St John’s Voices. If you are wondering who they are, they are a young mixed choir recruited from the college, the university, and the local community, who sing a weekly Evensong on Mondays, the day on which the college’s long-standing boys-and-men choir (since 2022 boy and girl sopranos, altos of either gender, and men) does not sing. In SJV’s ten-year history they have shown that they are of the same excellence as the long-standing choir, and have never settled for less, but they differ from it in two important respects: they admit adult female sopranos, and they make a much smaller demand on their members’ time, which for those taking certain particularly intensive degree courses is a key factor.
It is not long since St John’s gained widespread goodwill and kudos for introducing girls to the top line of its established choir along with boys. I am at a loss to know why they are prepared to squander it all, for what seem to me quite unconvincing stated reasons. The two choirs are not in competition: they are complementary. The money they cost can be raised. They are unashamed in their dedication to excellence – and if Cambridge University and its colleges are not prepared to take the lead in championing excellence, then who is? Excellence and inclusivity are not mutually exclusive. The support of our choral tradition at the highest level, one of Britain’s glories, is something to embrace, not step back from. It isn’t archaic, it’s a living heritage.
I hope you may feel moved to add your voice to the growing petition aimed at reversing what can only be seen as an ill-considered and misguided decision. JR
Open letter an petition asking for the College to change its decision: https://chng.it/cnj76NHznj
We trust that the St John’s authorities will take a second look at their unconvincing decision for disbanding SJV.
Thank you for your learned, and I hope decisive, input Mr Rutter; also, for alerting me to the petition
The College has seized control of the SJV social media accounts.
Staying classy, John’s.
Typical progressive authoritarianism if this is true: disgusting.
We wholeheartedly agree with John Rutter.
Please consider reversing the decision.
John Rutter is not convinced by the ‘stated reasons’, so I presume he has read the St John’s college statement on this matter, proposing different ways of using the funding for broader musical purposes. But he still seems to think is is only, or primarily, a cost-cutting measure.
Given how famously non-cash-strapped John’s is, it’s clearly a matter of destructive ideology.
So you’ve read the St John’s statement, I suppose. Please detail the ‘destructive ideology’ in it.
I can’t speak for JR but I’ve read the ‘after-thought’ statement and it’s not at all convincing: vague ‘inclusivity’ jargon with no actual or specific activity-example mentioned. And anyway, in a college with investments worth £700 million, the funding required for JSV is surely the tiniest drop in the ocean, and yet the disbanding of JSV is being interpreted as a huge step backwards for excellence and inclusivity. Dreadful decision. For goodness sake, limit further damage and just reverse it, quickly.
I agree with John Rutter, and Simon Rattle, Sarah Connolly, Iestyn Davies, Allan Clayton, Gareth Malone, Anna Lapwood, Marin Alsop, Susan Gritton, Hilary Hahn and numerous other musical luminaries who have put their names to the letter. Petition signed.
I wonder what all these people signing have to do with this second choir of the elite University of Cambridge? Better if we were to know all the facts as to what is going on other than money.
It sounds like you resent excellence. I don’t I find musicians with more talent than myself an inspiration. I think people are signing because they love music performed to a high standard and when an ideology of dumbing down starts it is copied by others. Despite what the authoritarian left try to force, people won’t stand for it and will defend what they hold dear.
Odd to describe the most civil and judicious critique as a “savaging.” Kudos to John Rutter; may St John’s reconsider its misguided attempt at penny-pinching.
I just don’t get it. Why can’t the a compromise be reached and the two merged?
They are very different choirs, with different aims and demands on the singers. Some of this is explained in Rutter’s message.
Hear hear! Well said Mr. Rutter
Struggling to get excited by this one.
This choir, membership largely non-college, is getting significant sponsorship from St John’s (paid director, music library, rehearsal and performance space) in return for something the college no longer desires. Conductor and members can continue to make music together, they just won’t have the large leg-up which most other choirs do not. I hope they choose to do so.
It’s a shame, yes, but it’s not exactly shattering: “College which is one of the world’s most generous artistic patrons makes minor adjustment to detail of patronage; one part-time salary re-allocated.”
Er, the membership is not ‘largely non-college’. Not sure why you think that it is?? Anyway, the bigger point is that ‘the college’ (presumably the master, who understands nothing about the value of what she is destroying) has made a decision which ‘the college’ (as in, huge numbers of current and former members) is protesting against. This protest is based on two main points. The first is that choral singing will continue to be ‘sponsored’, as you put it, by the college, but only for men + three token women, and for many times the amount of money that it costs to maintain the mixed voice choir. The second is that it is wrong to destroy something of such great merit without a proper consultation. So, you might not be able to get worked up about it, but those of us who are more directly affected easily can, as can those who actually know anything about it (like, say, John Rutter..). The abolition of places for sopranos is, on principle, not a ‘minor adjustment’.
Sources adjacent. The choir is open about drawing its membership from across Cambridge, university and town. My sources may be wrong or out of date. What are the current proportions please – Johns students, students at other colleges, non-university?
On this often made egalitarian point, if the campaigners were proposing instead to have the long standing famous children and choral scholar choir disbanded and an equal number of scholarships for women and men undergraduates replace it, they would have an excellent point. Otherwise it’s a pretty thin argument.
There have *never* been equal oportunities at St Johns for male and female singers. There still are not. Hopefully because of this singers will audition for other college choirs, and would be choral scholars will go elsewhere. Cambridge is not exactly short of opportunities to sing at a decent level.
Or better still, the current group continue under a new name on the same basis as hundreds of other choirs, thriving or failing on their own qualities. Good luck to them.
Total garbage
You seriously resent a university College allowing, in its own interests, occasional access to a library? Really?
Rehearsal space? Performance space, which I conclude is the college chapel during Monday Evensong?
You call these ‘sponsorship’, yet in your droll summary you refer only to a ‘minor adjustment to detail of patronage, one part-time salary’. That is the only real sponsorship by St John’s, and you admit it’s minor. Come on…
Who says the choir is unwanted in the college? This seems to be a decision which is being rammed through by the Master.
Merging the two choirs is never going to be a viable way forward, as each has its distinct identity. And, of course, the attraction of SJV is that people reading certain subjects can manage the time for that choir in a way that they cannot for the very busy choirs. But if only the college had decided to encourage SJV to sing in place of the service for men’s voices, few would have turned a hair, let alone raised a petition with several thousand signatures. Those who sing the men-only services know the classy repertoire to be very small, so there is not a very substantial sacrifice to be made.
The 2 choirs are complementary to each other, they are a key part of Worship and tradition. History and heritage are the backbone of the national heritage.
I would urge everybody whose kneejerk reaction is outrage to read the statement put out by St John’s College, presuming they have not done so, and give the matter a little more thought.
Among other proposals, there is this: “As part of this decision, St John’s has been exploring with the University’s Centre for Music Performance the opportunity to create a successor choir to St John’s Voices, independent of the College, along the lines of Oxford’s Schola Cantorum. This could be a route for the corpus of the choir and its director to stay together if they wish and, by meeting a gap in provision in the University, could add a fresh dimension to classical singing in Cambridge. The greatest hurdle to this plan is financial; the Centre would require an endowment of at least £500,000 to make this a sustainable direction.”
Perhaps the distinguished petitioners between them could fund an endowment for this laudable aim?
https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/music-college-st-johns-statement
“In SJV’s ten-year history …” Well, there it is. This has been cast as a desecration of a long and proud tradition when it is a new kid on the block. I’d bet that ten years ago the conservative element would have derided this mixed-voice choir as another example of the fall of Western Civ; Men and women, singing together… Mass hysteria!
Controversial view here but how is it fair how much money Cambridge puts into religious choral music as against other types of music? I’m not against choirs but I’m a cellist at John’s and what we get through orchestra is nowhere close to the choirs. No free tours, no recordings, no broadcasts, no free lessons. And there are loads of choirs with pro choirmasters across Cambridge (the majority of which take sops) all singing the same music in church. Cambridge’s obsession with this particular type of music is actually pretty weird isn’t it? IDK but maybe the Master is right to try to share the opportunities out more for different students and anyway I’d rather a lower rent rise than two choirs doing pretty much the same thing.
Do you honestly think that money taken away from this choir will magically find its way to other classical ensembles? On the contrary, it is more likely to set a precedent for further cuts. (Actually, the choirmaster of SJV is in fact a professional cellist who plays internationally in both classical and Latin American genres and he’s a really nice man so I think if you actually spoke to him rather than defending the action of the very master who has approved the rent rises you are worried about you might find that he’s got some really positive ideas to share… Unlike the college…)
Among the proposals in their statement,which you have probably not read, is “enabling new ensembles and community music-making”. So yes, there may be a chance for orchestral players to get more share of the cake.
Yes, I have read it, thank you. But as the statement the college (and I don’t know why we keep saying ‘the college’ when what we mean is a very powerful but perhaps individual voice within it – ‘the college’ is all of its members, past and present, and the reaction to the decision suggests widespread disgust) has put out says it aims only to ‘maintain’ its ‘classical ensembles’, and instead to introduce opportunities for jazz and pop, you are seriously deluded if you think any of the (actually relatively small amount of) cash saved on SJV will be coming your orchestra’s way.
Allowing for feelings running high, for the sake of your position’s credibility you should take a leaf out of JR’s book and moderate the tone of your replies. You won’t address the concern about proportionality of spending, quite legitimately and civilly expressed by the poster above, by being patronising and snarky, and you won’t strengthen your position where it matters by making repeated personal attacks on the Master, whatever your views on her may be. It’s not a good idea to make the other side look like the grownups in the room.
Fair enough – I will moderate my tone in future, if that is how it is coming across to you – after all, reflecting on our own behaviour is an important thing to do, especially at this time of year. Just to be clear, I am not a member of SJV, but I am a member of the College strongly in support of their continued existence; I have written (like huge numbers of other Johnians) to the master, but none of those I am in touch with have had a reply, even where we have withdrawn promises of donations. This is disappointing. But I haven’t made any personal attacks on anyone – only stated facts as I understand them. As the college has locked the choir out of their own social media accounts, I have been moved to write in support of them – if the college has taken their voice away, it seems reasonable to do so. But I also note that the choir itself has behaved with dignity and grace and quite astonishing reserve throughout (even if you think that I’ve let my vexation get the better of my tone), despite the circumstances. Your point is well taken, though, and in future I will ask myself “what would JR do?”, and write more temperately. In all sincerity, I wish you a peaceful Easter.
Well firstly it is a Christian chapel choir so they are hardly going to sing Tajweed there (though that might go down well with the crit theory brigade and save them). Secondly it is music of the most beautiful kind that soothes and calms in an ugly world and is appreciated by many. The gentleman who runs this blog is Jewish and yet he is highlighting this
Music-making in all its forms at St John’s College deserves to be fostered and supported, but the college choirs are a special case because they actually work for the college, just like the porters or kitchen staff. In the college chapel they provide the musical part of the worship that visitors flock to attend, and in the wider world they act as highly effective ambassadors for the college through webcasts, recordings, broadcasts and tours. They are not giving of their time and talents solely for their own gratification but in the service of their college. Members of SJV receive no direct payment, but some benefits in kind are surely an appropriate recognition of their role.
This is a completely spurious argument. Instrumental concerts are also attended by members of the public and could be deemed to be given ‘in the service of the College’ (or University) insofar as they too serve an important civic engagement function. I understand why those with a vested interest in Anglican choral music (including Mr Rutter) are screaming loudly, but as the correspondent above has noted the time is coming for some sort of reckoning about the disparity of resourcing between cocurricular chapel choirs (and to some extent rowing) and all other forms of cocurricular activity at Oxford and Cambridge. The current situation is by no means serving the needs of students – especially those who happen not to be from a Christian background – fairly.
‘St John’s Fellow and Tutor’ misreads the tone and the motivation behind my two recent statements on the issue of their proposed disbanding of SJV. I would never ‘scream loudly’ at anyone: I have written in what I hope were measured tones as a friend of St John’s College to warn them against what has already been widely seen as a serious mistake of governance. As to my motivation, I have no particular vested interest in Anglican church music, though I enjoy and value the best of it and gladly admit to having written and conducted a certain amount of it in the course of a wide-ranging musical career – I feel just as strongly about ACE’s defunding of English National Opera and the Britten Sinfonia. My point about the choirs of St John’s being the college’s servants and ambassadors is not to be dismissed as ‘a completely spurious argument’: it’s demonstrably true. That’s not to say that other musical events given by members of the college are not valuable as a form of civic engagement, the public is of course welcome to attend and enjoy them, but they don’t attract visitors and followers from around the world, nor are they on offer seven days a week in term-time. You don’t have to be Scottish to enjoy a good single malt, and you don’t have to be Christian to enjoy and be uplifted by a choral Evensong.
If the disparity between the college’s funding of its choirs and its other music-making is a concern, the simple solution which would harm no one is to find or raise more money for non-choral music within the college. Oxbridge colleges don’t generally have too much trouble with fund-raising, and in the case of St John’s its own coffers are deep.
As one St John’s student has written, the prevalence of choirs in the colleges of Cambridge University can be seen as ‘weird’ . . . but isn’t that just like the Menuhin School specialising in piano and string tuition? Cambridge, like the Menuhin School, has a very particular history and tradition. St John’s, in common with most of our colleges, was founded at a time when religion and learning were intertwined. It bears the name of a Christian saint. Like all our older colleges, it has a chapel where its members gather for worship and its choir sings; and a dining hall for everyone to meet and exchange ideas. If we disregard that essentially monastic tradition and fail to remember and uphold it, we are taking away a part of our special identity, one that we should celebrate and cherish. You don’t honour those of other faith traditions by disavowing your own. Christianity is not for everyone in our multi-faith and secular society, but its music is for everyone.
I have three wishes for SJF&T: first, reflect that a choir can be disbanded at the stroke of a pen but takes years to build up. Don’t undo the good that has been done in the eleven years of SJV’s existence. Second, pay a visit to the hauntingly beautiful Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral where the headless statues vandalised by Thomas Cromwell’s men bear witness to the harm done by iconoclasts who are sure they’re right. Third, calm down. Disagreements conducted disagreeably within a college governing body can leave a legacy of bitterness and ill-feeling that can last for decades, helping no one.
JOHN RUTTER
Comparing the University of Cambridge to the Menuhin School is stretching matters. Cambridge University was not originally founded primarily as a school for gifted musicians. The religious tradition and the place of of choral music in it is of course valuable. But how is it being threatened by the loss of a (comparatively) very recently formed choir that sings one service a week?
I would add that it is clear that many of the people protesting have no idea of the real situation, or even of what or where St John’s College is.
I would be interested if you could enlighten us on your position – are you representing the College on this forum? I find it interesting that the statement put out by the College is not signed. Surely if the people involved in disbanding the choir are confident in their decision, they should put their name to it? Or perhaps it’s the fact that the world’s most famous living choral composer and orchestral conductor telling the College it’s a bad idea that has put off anyone taking full ownership of the decision. What a massive PR fail.
So lowest common denominator eh? Just dumb it down with bongo drums and tambourines? Well…your wish might come true…read that statement from the Master…again!
Do Fellows at St John’s have a social media and communications policy to which they have to adhere? Because College staff members would face disciplinary action if they were found to be giving their own opinions on College policy in a public forum. The amount of reputational damage this is causing to the College is far greater than the cost of running the choir. And if it’s true that the College has seized access to the SJV social media- that’s shocking and something that I have not heard of in all my years of living and working here.
One could say the same about orchestras in Cambridge – why do you need college funding for an orchestra when there are already loads in Cambridge? The point is, the College dismissed the choir with no consultation or dialogue, and could have very well integrated the choir alongside other musical activities in College they are planning. The statement put out by the college talks a lot of talk, but the reality is that they’re cost cutting, and I assume that’s why no one actually wants to put their name to it. I’m afraid, if you’re hoping to see more money put into college music during your time here, My guess is it will be hugely unlikely (otherwise the statement would have included more specific costings for the next budget round). Apart from the choir director, there has already been other staff redundancies made by the College which have not garnered media attention.
The point about funding for orchestras may well be fair enough, but I don’t think Cambridge’s ‘obsession’ with choral music (Anglican choral music specifically) is weird at all. The fact is that Cambridge is known internationally as a centre of excellence for this kind of music in a way that is basically unique (with one possible exception, somewhere between Swindon and Milton Keynes). Any admirer of choral music anywhere in the world has heard of King’s College Choir; not very many symphony-lovers have heard of CUSO. That’s no reflection on the standard of instrumental music at Cambridge – far from it. It’s simply the case that the top Cambridge choirs have a uniquely high status in their field, which is why (in my very boring opinion) they should be cherished and protected.
What a dreadful shame. I do hope you can find a way to change your minds.
Clearly a misguided decision. Well done, for bringing this to our attention.
Few enough good things happening in UK so why throw out the babies with the bathwater? Shame on the philistines among you.
This is definitely cultural vandalism and I have no idea what the College thinking, particularly as the money needed could probably very easily be raised.Nothing seems to be sacred anymore and the progressives seem to take a perverse delight in dismantling anything which involves dedication and skill.
I agree fully with John Rutter. The relatively recent inclusion of females, both treble and alto in cathedral and college choirs was a very positive move. Therefore the decision of St John’s College Council to disbandon St John’s John’s Voices is a negative one. Let us hope the Council will revue and withdraw their decision and allow this excellent choir to continue, thereby giving young singers of both sexes the opportunity to sing in a Cambridge college Chapel once a week.
Yours sincerely,
David Burrowes (former cathedral alto lay clerk and lay vicar)
A measured and sensible letter from John Rutter. I agree broadly with the arguments he and others make. But Cambridge has never been short of excellent opportunities for singers of all tastes and abilities so it is not exactly choral doomsday. ( And I write as one Rutter’s very first tenors in the ‘Clare college Singers’ in 1967. And I wasn’t in Clare, incidentally.)
Shameful. Not a good example of Cambridges EDI or Community Engagement policies.
At Johns should know better
So sad to hear of choir demise
Have experienced the pure beauty of evensong sung by them
A show case for visitors to experience the beauty of prayer through music
So short sighted
Please, please bring back the choir! I live in the United States, and have cherished Britain’s choral tradition for over 60 years. The times we live in are hard enough – the balm of beautiful voices, so unique to the UK cannot be lost.
Totally agree with John Rutter
Shocking thing to happenI know what it is like.Something similar happened to our Choir.I hope they do a U turn
Well said! Thank you. Where do I sign?
https://chng.it/cnj76NHznj
A sad and misguided decision on the part of SJC. Thank you for your work Mr. Rutter
How completely irrational that, while Merton College, Oxford, has just built its choir up, over the last 10 or 15 years, to become one of international reputation, and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, has just started on this road, a college well know for its choir in The Other University is suddenly going in the opposite direction.