Wells Cathedral school - is being a chorister fun?

[PickledCoelacanth]

My Dd (8) loves singing (and all things performance-based) and we've been considering putting her forward to audition for Wells Cathedral School as a chorister. Super early days atm as we obviously don't know if she would even get in and would need a bursary to afford it. However, before we start the process I wondered if anyone has children who have been choristers there and whether they enjoyed it? I'm really keen that she continues to love music, rather than starts seeing it as a chore. How did your DCs find it?

If they love singing there are other ways too - for example my dd is in the girls' section of the national youth choir, which she adores (and is residential courses in the holidays), if full choristership seems too much.

Mine were choristers from 8-18 but not boarding, they attended normal state school. They loved it and one is currently studying music specialising in liturgical music

@Newgirls

It's a love if the music - there's an interesting book called the Christian Atheist which explores the pull of traditional church especially evensong to non believers.

yes the music is beautiful. I live near a cathedral and the music is indeed lovely. But it’s music for worship isn’t it so surely preference should be for families who value that. As others have said there are amazing choirs to join at a high level for a talented musical child.

Are you actually suggesting that a family’s religious belief should be auditioned along with the child’s musical ability?

I don’t think people realise it’s the child and their family doing the cathedral a favour really rather than the other way round!

You did get an additional bursary if a parent was actually in the clergy though at DD’s choir.

While NYCGB is fantastic and my dd loves it, being a chorister is that week in, week out, experience of learning new music and singing it with a team of others you know well. She is in a good local church choir (quite a few of them have their Gold Award, so comparable standards to cathedrals), but that means ‘only’ one rehearsal a week, festivals and once or (usually) twice on Sundays. It works well for us, we would not consider boarding.

She really enjoys it, has made good friends and can sight sing pretty much anything! She’s also found it helps with instrumental skills, she picked up a new instrument fast, according to her teacher.

We are not a Christian family, and her choir makes it clear that is not required. And I do enjoy Evensong occasionally, purely for the music and the atmosphere.

I know a LOT of chorister parents and former choristers from a number of different cathedrals/churches. Remember that the adults get paid because of both the level of commitment and standard. Unless she is boarding, do not underestimate the commitment you, as her parents will have to make. I like church, enjoy music and have a faith. But even I don’t want to go to church everyday and 3 (not sure if Wells do Matins) sung services on Sunday. Little - no holiday outside of the summer because of the commitment required to Holy Week / Easter / Advent / Christmas. If you like going away or doing other things at the weekend, don’t do it. Also, given the recent report in the Church Times about Wells Cathedral I’d look at other cathedrals and major churches tbh.

Thanks again all for the replies. I grew up singing in a parish choir so Christmas and Easter have always been about church anyway. Sadly parish choirs seem to be few and far between round here 😕

It already is in our cathedral - I’m surprised that isn’t always the case? Priority for congregation children and for those in the local church primary school.

@PickledCoelacanth

It's a shame about the demise of choirs. I work in the diocese bath & wells! There are (well precovid) around 100 full choirs and a few hundred voluntary choirs/singing groups left in England. My DD's were choristers at a large church and received payment for singing but attended local school

I wasn't suggesting that the NYCGB was enough on its own really, Obviouslynotnow (I don't think any of DDs friends there have it is as their only choir) but it is a nice adjunct perhaps to school choir and maybe other lessons, which could be 'enough' for some children without it having to be the full cathedral experience.

Ironically, our DD can't be in a church choir because we are churchgoers, but not at the sort of church that has a choir - which means she isn't free on Sundays. So she has to cope with choirs in school and saturday school (and singing lessons). It's just a different way of accessing singing.

Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that you did. I just meant that NYCGB is great but in a really different way because of how it works. So if a child wants more regular singing, it needs supplementation - like you say, with singing lessons or school choirs or whatever.

These documents look dense but are recent and have a lot of information . From their website. Maybe some insights here?

2iko5z1en6hwooj872yzcvv5-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Wells-Cathedral-Safeguarding-Audit-Report-24.05.22.pdf

2iko5z1en6hwooj872yzcvv5-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Wells-Cathedral-Safeguarding-Audit-Action-Plan-31.05.22.pdf