London choir tour

Press, 19 March 1986, Page 22

London choir tour

The Wells Cathedral Choir, and the Wells Cathedral School Chamber Ensemble, will visit New Zealand on a world tour in 1986.

Taking in Singapore, New Zealand and Los Angeles, the 60-strong party will leave London on Saturday, April 5 for a packed three-week itinerary. The first concert will be in St Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore, on April 7.

On arrival in New Zealand, the choir will embark on an intensive programme of seven cathedral concerts in 14 days, taking in Auckland, Hamilton, Napier, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch and Dunedin. In addition, there will be organ recitals by Christopher Brayne, assistant Wells Cathedral organist, in Auckland, Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch.

Last port of call en route for home will be Los Angeles, where the choir will give a concert in the auditorium of the California Institute of Technology on April 24.

John Newman, the tour

organiser who will accompany the choir, said: “This is the first time that an English cathedral choir has travelled around the world. The ambitious and varied programme contains some of the finest examples of the English choral tradition as well as orchestral items by European and British composers.”

The Wells Cathedral Choir consists of 16 boy choristers and 10 gentlemen of the choir, or •vicars choral.” The history of the choir is as old as that of the cathedral itself: the records of the vicars choral go back to the year 1136, and it is known that there were boy choristers singing even before that date. In the fourteenth century the then Bishop provided the choir with proper income and built the Vicars’ Close for the vicars choral to live in — a unique medieval street which still exists today and in which the organists and vicars choral still live. The boy choristers are selected at voice trials which are held each year and come from all over England. Together with the vicars

choral they sing the services in the Cathedral each day, performing a very extensive repertoire of music from all historical periods. The cathedral school has in the last 10 years developed as one of the four leading specialist music schools in England. In 1970 a scheme was launched at the school providing 12 places for outstanding young violinists. Later the Leverhulme Trust gave generous grants enabling the scheme to be widened to include cellists. Since 1977 tuition has been available on all major orchestral instruments, providing for 70 boys and girls. The Chamber Orchestra consists of many of these young specialists. They meet twice a week rehearsing music from the seventeenth century to the present day. Each year the orchestra gives a London concert, and other engagements have included the Bath Festival, the International. Festival of Youth Orchestras at Aberdeen and several television and radio appearances.

Christopher Brayne was

a chorister at Lichfield ' Cathedral and continued « bls education at Malvern * College. Later, at the - Royal College of Music, ; he studied the organ with < John Birch and the harp- J sichord with Ruth Dyson. In 1974 he won the organ scholarship to St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle and in the following year took up a similar scholarship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge where he studied with Gillian . Weir.

Between 1978 and 1983 Christopher Brayne was organist and assistant director of Music at Wellington College, Berkshire and accompanist to the Reading Bach Choir. During this period he played continue with the London Bach Orchestra and with the English Chamber ’ Orchestra under Philip Ledger. In 1983 -he was * appointed assistant organ- -■> ist of Wells Cathedral and , continues his studies with ■> Nicholas Danby and Jean * Langlais.

The Christchurch con- • certs will be on April ’ 18 and 19. Christopher - Brayne’s organ concert will be on April 18.