An English cathedral without boy singers?
NewsWakefield is sinking ever deeper into a mire of its own making. Six months after promising a full investigation into instances of bullying and various forms of abuse, it has just issued this explanation to worried parishioners:
Dear […],
I am writing in response to your complaints regarding Wakefield Cathedral. I am aware it has been some time since communication regarding this has been made. And that is because a thorough investigation has been conducted.
I am sure you will understand it is not appropriate to share the detail around specific individuals or any outcomes or actions specific to those individuals. That said, I wanted to offer you assurances that a detailed and fair investigation has taken place, and I am satisfied with an appropriate outcome.
Best wishes,
Juliette Mclellan
Head of Safeguarding
Insiders have offered us this alarming summary of the present state of affairs:
- The Dean has now ruined a third music department.
- Tom Moore forced into resignation (former Slipped Disc article)
- Ed Jones sacked for not getting on with a bullying precentor (former Slipped Disc article)
- James Bowstead now given opportunity to remove trebles from the choir.
- Seven choristers are now in the choir, others have been sacked, and others have left.
- They have now cut the chorister payment by 75%, promising a bumper payment at the end of year nine. In real terms, they are going to pay them 25% now, then find reasons to sack them before they reach Year 9.
- They have spent an £80,000 legacy promised “For the choristers” on salaries and Lay Clerk fees.
- Funding has been refused for a second year running from the Cathedral Music Trust. Funding tends to be given out every other year.
- Adults are now being paid seven times what they were previously paid.
- Female Adult Sopranos are also being paid £35 a service to bulk out the children’s choir when required.
- The Cathedral talk about “and all cathedrals are finding it more and more difficult to get choristers to commit to the timetables which until quite recently were not a problem”.
- By way of comparison…
- Ripon Cathedral in the same diocese has sixty trebles in their two separate children’s choirs.
- Bradford Cathedral also in the same diocese has over 30 choristers over two treble lines.
- Wakefield had over 35 choristers a year and a half ago over two treble lines.
- In fact, there are few cathedrals struggling with recruiting…
- By way of comparison…
- Adult Sopranos are now singing more services than the trebles.
- The ongoing safeguarding investigations about the cathedral’s failings are continuing, and may be the reason for the depleting involvement of children in the choir.
- Wakefield could become the first Church of England cathedral to remove children permanently from their musical tradition.
One would hope this isn’t the case, as it suggests the ministry contained there is coercively flawed. We’d assume some things are flawed by virtue of humankind but can churches not find ways of eradicating that?
I am pleased to no longer be part of this communion.
Maybe they should concentrate on more praying and less climbing the slippery pole of personal ambition. Or take a long hard look at themselves and their reputation.
Shirley. I fear that praying won’t solve this mess. The church has relied on praying for hundreds of years, and still have failed to secure an appropriate method of how to do things well.
Clergy are not trained to be managers, HR experts, etc, for they have got to their position by other means. What we really need are people above the clergy who can solve the messes that time and time again these music departments find theirselves in because of clergy inadequacy.
I’m sorry to say it is very much the case. If the purpose of the cathedral choir was to destroy self extreme, show elitism and unfair behaviour, treat youngsters with lack of understanding and compassion, and promote a “do as I say not as I do” culture, they’ve got it spot on. However, that doesn’t chime with Christian or even human values, does it?
The Neurotic Society, Part 106.
I wish I could say I’m surprised. My son is emotionally scarred from his time there and suffered discrimination and bullying. He is thriving since leaving but still suffered very poor self esteem from his experience. It has always been about who’s face fits and there is no room for anyone else. There are no Christian values or even common decency or care.
My dear Sarah – since when did Christian belief and value have anything to do with vicious, vain, self promoting priests in the Church of England. A more-venal bunch you could not find. Most of them in my very considerable experience are often alcoholics and/or sodomites, which matters not one bit except that their own teachings prohibit it, which thus makes them hyprocrites.
As my devout friend always says – the truth of being a Christian is in the doing, not in the showing. Not unlike being a Jew. It is in the action, not the word.
Who is bullying and discriminating against the choristers? Other choristers? Or musicians? Or clergy?
It’s a question of the culture of bullying and discrimination being supported by the clergy because it isn’t recognised by them. Or acknowledged when complaints are made.
Adult choristers, staring at and intimidating children, clergy ignoring complaints and DoM only wanting certain children and finding ways to bully and break self esteem of those he doesn’t until they leave. Fact.
Why are adult singers even interacting with the young choristers in more than passing? And why these references to the DoM only wanting only certain children whose faces fit? I don’t understand what that means: if the cathedral is struggling to recruit choristers at all, how can they be “choosy?”
Exactly. Snobbery at its finest. If you pay homage to the DoM you’re fine. Question his treatment of children/disagree and you’re out, even to the extent of lying.
It’s all part of the anti traditional music in Cathedrals to dumb down and eradicate their very costly and old fashioned musical offerings led by former oil CEO, Justin Welby known for his indifference to music in worship, which as he always demonstrates with tepid interest in his bland attempts to support music in his cathedrals.
What news on the debacle at Winchester now it’s back to worship there?
The Independent Inquiry at Winchester is in full flow at present.
Many of the Cathedral Community have submitted evidence, as well as Musicians, and interviews are taking place.
At this stage, it would be inappropriate to comment and the process needs to be trusted.
Personally I read this latest o Wakefield, and I feel so deeply for what their Community is going through
It’s enough to turn you off going to church and hear so-called ‘elite’ music, for want of a better word, when all this is going on. There is a problem of recruitment of kids but not because they can’t sing. They dint want that kind of commitment on a Sunday when they can go and enjoy sports. But it is also because the kids and parents can’t face what is going on behind the front door, either in the church itself but also the ‘backstage’ Prima Donna priests. The whole thing at Wakefield is just shocking and far from what Jesus preached.
You have heard ONE SIDE of the story.
Facts are facts. Can’t argue with the figures, dear.
When many people are saying the same thing its more than just a story, it’s simply the truth.
Ok, so how about this? A chorister complained that he had seen 2 members of the back row clearly mocking a disabled server during a service. Were they suspended pending investigation? No. Was there an investigation after which the chorister had feedback as to his complaint? No. Because their faces fit. Fact.
It’s all part of the of the CofE conspiracy to dumb down the contribution pf professional music in services led by Archbishop Welby who is indifferent to the role of music in current church services.
It also doesn’t help the church dwindling finances that one of the most expensive (if not thee most) expensive outlays is the cost of providing professional music in services.
Neither is it unusual these days to have very few, if any, boys committing to the church anymore, other than getting a free musical education as seen by many pushy parents.
Boys have always preferred sport at the weekend rather than Stanford or Tallis.
It will get to the stage soon, as outlined at Winchester cathedral that costly pro choirs are replaced by cheap amateur ones instead.
It’s already happening as a cost cutting necessary in some cathedrals.
As a boy who much preferred Stanford, Tallis, Haydn, Howells, Moore, Jackson, Langlais and Bach over football or any other sport – as did many of my friends – I have to say I disagree.
The situations in Winchester and Wakefield are rightly being highlighted as aberrations.
What are their congregation numbers like?
Not great. An elderly regular member of the congregation who knows nothing of all of this debacle commented to me that she’d noticed the decline in chorister numbers. The congregation has always been sparse.
Personally I’m not very religious but I always thought the Church was supposed to set an example of Christian behsviour.
Evidently not in Wakefield though.
It’s a joke. Only really not funny. The behaviour at Wakefield Cathedral has confirmed my long held disappointment in those professing to be devoutly Christian. Skewed values, and actually all about money.
A part of the problem is that Cathedral and major church Directors of Music are often appointed primarily on their qualifications / experience / reputation as organists, whereas that is not the key skill set required for the role. By the time you get to be a Cathedral DoM, you’re seldom going to be playing the organ in liturgical context, and you don’t actually need to play it at all, ever. The primary skill-set is to be a first-class team leader and “people person”. The next most important skill (of which the first forms a part) is to be an excellent choir trainer and director. There are, of course, a good number of expert organists who are possessed of those team-leading, choir-training skills and competencies, but perhaps not all. The way to improve the mix would be to open up the profession to proven choir directors who are not organists. Andrew Carwood at St. Paul’s Cathedral is the best worked example currently extant. It might help if there were at least a few more in the same vein.