The Choir of Southwell Minster

So wrote W A James, Librarian of the Minster, in 1927. Eighty years later, the tradition is as strong as ever and choristers continue to be educated at the Minster School whose first recorded Schoolmaster was Henry de Hykeling in 1313. For all that time, men and boys have sung the praises of God in this place, led by a director of music whose title, Organist and Rector Chori (literally, ‘ruler of the choir’), dates from the sixteenth century.

Names of Singingmen are known from 1571, and knowledge of choristers begins in 1469 when one, Milo Hogesone, was admitted to the choir on 8th October. For centuries the choristers swore allegiance to the Chapter in the Chapter House; many of these documents (in Latin until the 18th century) are preserved. Not always well-behaved, choristers have from time to time been admonished. In the Chapter Visitation of 3 May 1503 we read: “the vestments of the choristers are disgracefully torn, and the copes are not properly repaired. The choristers do not gird the priests, deacons and themselves properly, they rave and swear and disturb the priest celebrating our Lady’s mass, and want a good whipping.”

Southwell Minster Choir 2007 (photo: Chris Knapton)

Today the choristers and lay clerks rehearse and sing Evensong on five days a week during the school term, as well as two services on Sunday. In addition to these daily services, the Minster choir appears on television and radio—notably in BBC Radio 3 Choral Evensong broadcasts, makes CDs, sings elsewhere in the Diocese to encourage church music, and has given concerts in Italy, Normandy, the Netherlands, Paris, Prague and Switzerland to critical acclaim. An important event in the Minster calendar in November every year is the St Cecilia Concert which enables the Choir to display to the wider Southwell community the breadth of its repertoire, and sometimes to include large-scale works with instrumental accompaniment.

St Cecilia Concert, November 2006

Choir enters the Minster for Evensong (photo: Chris Knapton)

Tours abroad

Abbaye aux Hommes, Caen

In April 2004 the choir spent a week in Caen in Normandy, staying in the homes of friends, and gave concerts in many of the region’s beautiful churches which survived heavy bombing during the Second World War. On Palm Sunday, the choir sang the High Mass in the Abbaye aux Hommes, founded by William the Conqueror. There was plenty of time for recreational activities and sight-seeing and boys and men were able to visit Cherbourg, Bayeux and the D-Day Beaches during the trip, which took place a few weeks before the 60th Anniversary celebrations of the Allied Invasion in May 1944. In April 2006 the Choir spent a week in Sweden and Denmark. Read a choral scholar’s Tour Diary of this visit or view the Photo Gallery. The next tour abroad will be in late May 2008 when the Choir will spend a week in Italy giving concerts and singing services.

Music repertoire

The choir’s repertoire is huge and encompasses the music of six centuries. Notable recent additions to the repertoire include Paul Patterson’s Southwell Millennium Mass, commissioned by Southwell Minster Choir Association. This Mass was given its première in the Minster at Sung Eucharist on January 2nd, 2000 with the Orchestra of St John’s Smith Square, conducted by Paul Hale.