You think church music is tradition? Try the new gendering agenda
NewsThe Cathedral Music Trust has just provided details of this autumn’s groundbreaking academic conference. There is barely one practising church organist who has been invited to speak.
Here’s the outline:
Dear Colleague,
It gives me great pleasure to announce that public booking is now open for Cathedral Music Trust’s academic conference, and to provide you with some more information about the event.
Over the course of two days, we will hear from some twenty experts in the field of cathedral music, who will address topical themes and provide stimulating insight based on current research. I’m pleased to confirm that Dr Ralph Allwood from The Rodolfus Foundation, Benjamin Saunders from the National Schools Singing Programme, Sarah MacDonald from Selwyn College Cambridge and Ely Cathedral, Cathedral Music Trust Trustee Simon Toyne, and Dr Rebecca Berkley from the University of Reading will take part in our panel discussion on working with the current generation of choristers. Historian Nicholas Orme will highlight our themes within the context of England’s cathedrals, and John Rutter will give the after-dinner speech on Thursday evening.
The Revd Prof. June Boyce-Tillman will give a keynote address on Thursday afternoon, exploring notions of identity, meaning-making, ritual, the concert/liturgy division and inclusivity, and the potential role of grace in guiding these interactions. On Friday morning Dr Hanna Rijken will consider the inherent power of the cathedral music tradition in England, and what understanding the motivations and experiences of Dutch choirs might contribute to studies of cathedral music and religiosity more widely. She will be followed by The Revd Dr Jonathan Arnold who will explore how his research through the ‘Experience of Music’ project has shown that there are social, ethical, and spiritual benefits to music experience. He will discuss how such spiritual experience through music can point towards, and even reveal, a reality beyond our everyday human materiality.
I am particularly excited to share that fourteen of our brightest and most inspirational new generation researchers will also present their work, completed as part of their master’s or doctoral studies in the field of cathedral music. Ten academics will give their papers, and another four will take part in a poster session where you will have the opportunity to discuss their findings with them. It is a huge privilege to bring together these researchers from around the world to present their work to you, and I am pleased to be able to provide their titles, with links to their abstracts, below:
Katie Ambrose | Choral music-making in gendered settings: a technologically mediated approach
The Revd Canon Nicholas James Watson Brown | Historical and institutional influences on the theological understanding of cathedral singers
Isobel Chesman | The Vocal Health Status of Lay Clerks in English Anglican Cathedral Choirs
Revd Kathryn Evans | The spiritual potential of liturgical singing in the Anglican Cathedral Tradition: a theological foundation for facing challenges
Pete Gunstone | Diverse People Inhabiting Praise Together
Prof. Simone Krüger Bridge | Harmony in Diversity: Unveiling the Inherent Societal Contributions of Liverpool Cathedral’s Egalitarian Music Outreach Programme in the Liverpool City Region
Benjamin Liberatore | ‘They make me feel like I’m dirtying the tradition’: Child choristers’ perspectives on belonging, difference, and ‘identity’ in English cathedral music
Imogen Morgan | I Heard a Voice from Heaven: the impact of religious melodic themes in instrumental music on the visual mental imagery experienced by a listener
Rebekah Okpoti | Anne Lister, the Pipe organ and The Girly Organist: curating the sound world of an icon to address bigotry
Elizabeth Preece | Cultural Capital and the Choir: Understanding Social Class Reproduction within Choir Schools
Meg Rees | A Detailed Exploration of Choral Evensong and its Significance in 2024
Lily Robson | The English Cathedral Music Canon: Appraising the musicological presentation of Twentieth and Twenty-First-Century Cathedral Music
Denise Stobart | The Divine as an integral part of Religious Cognition experienced through Music during Worship in the Anglican Tradition
Bronwyn Thies-Thompson | Choral Evensong as Music Therapy: Examining the Mental Health Benefits of Religious Musicking for Choristers
Attendees will enjoy a fully-catered experience, including a drinks reception, three-course conference dinner with wine, and delicious hot lunches served in Sarum College Refectory. No event of this nature would be replete without Choral Evensong itself, which will be sung by Salisbury Cathedral Choir on Thursday.
Full-price ticket: £185.
and I bet the current mess at Winchester won’t be on the agenda, nor the wider picture of the threat and demise of choral music in our fledging Cathedrals as they pat themselves on the backs and enjoy the delicious food and wine in sarum college refectory
dinosaur. is a word that springs to mind
My immediate reaction to the agenda is to think of a (hopefully) well-known film, starring Fred Astaire, Jack Buchanan, Oscar Levant, Cyd Charisse, and Nanette Fabray, with everyone jumping on…
Yes, I do know the one. The ‘big’ song is “That’s Entertainment”. But in the case of music making at cathedrals, it is not entertainment but God (or the ‘Eternal Divine’ if you will) about which they should be singing.
Give me strength.
Hilarious is the hope that some form of spiritual grace will be showered on these attempts (Prof. Boyce-Tillman), as if God would be worried there’s not enough gendering in church music.
Interesting. Note that ‘The Worship and Glory of God’ doesn’t appear to be on the agenda!
The reason is, that there is much doubt – within all ecclesiastical circles – about the real gender of God.
I wonder if Salisbury Cathedral Choir will perform a mash-up of something vaguely familiar and some hip-hop?
I hope SD will stay abreast of this conference. If only to find out if anyone has the cojones to stand up for what makes English cathedral music the envy of the thinking world.
It’s an academic conference. Cathedral organists tend to be practical, not academic, musicians. And although I am one, I wouldn’t automatically call on an organist for an interesting discussion of current trends in church classical music.
Looking down the list of speakers you might just have heard of John Rutter and Ralph Alwood as rather well-known church musicians. Sarah Macdonald directs a Cambridge college choir and a cathedral choir. Jonathan Arnold is a former professional singer. And so on…
so what will the ‘academics’ be doing with the fruits of their ‘research’? Perhaps lobbying trendy Deans and Chapters to implement them – starting with firing Organists & Masters of Choristers/Masters of Music (to be replaced with new ‘Directors of Music, of course) – perhaps starting with those approaching retirement (easy targets)?
Are academics (why the scare quotes?) somehow to blame for both individual cathedrals’ hiring and HR behaviours and for decades-long nomenclature changes across the field of cathedral music?
Why ‘academics’ in inverted commas?
It’s an academic conference for researchers. Why should eminent organists be invited to speak? That’s what the organist-centred conferences are for. Many of those speaking are active lay clerks, choral directors, or church musicians in their own right.
Looking at the list I see Rebekah Okpoti, organist at Lancaster Priory, Imogen Morgan, ADoM at St Mary’s Edinburgh, and other eminent cathedral musicians. Or do women not count Norman?
The word ‘gender’ isn’t even mentioned once in the event description. Perhaps the old white men among us need to calm down slightly and appreciate this pioneering event for what it is. Buy a ticket and come and engage in productive discussion.
The programme seems bang on to me, not sure why the clusterf*ck at Winchester would need to be discussed.