OK, firstly I should stop titling updates with ‘Happy … !’. Secondly, I should also provide more fre­quent updates here on what is going on in my pro­fes­sion­al life. This sounds like a good basis for a New Year’s resolution!

It has been nine months since my last post and, even though I have not made time to write about it here, there has been lots of won­der­ful music-mak­ing going on.

All Saints’, Stamford

In my main job as Dir­ect­or of Music at All Saints’ church in Stam­ford, the sum­mer and autumn terms have con­tained a host of music­al delights. Our adult choir is con­tinu­ing to expand, both in num­bers and ambi­tion, the former thanks at least in part to vari­ous events which have reached out to loc­al sing­ers. In par­tic­u­lar, our ‘Come & Sing Stan­ford in Stam­ford’ Chor­al Even­song last July was a great suc­cess, enjoyed by many.

Our monthly Chor­al Even­songs at All Saints’ (on the second Sunday of the month) con­tin­ue to draw in sing­ers from choirs across the loc­al area, with more always wel­come – get in touch with me if you are inter­ested in join­ing us to sing for these (or for any) services.

Since East­er, we have also re-formed the All Saints’ Juni­or Choir. This group is open to any chil­dren (aged 7+) in the Stam­ford area who love to sing. 

Juni­or Choir rehears­als take the form of an after school club on Fri­days, with the chor­is­ters also reg­u­larly singing for ser­vices, usu­ally on the second and fourth Sundays of the month. Along­side the chance to enjoy singing togeth­er reg­u­larly, the Juni­or Choir offers our chor­is­ters free music tuition, helps them to devel­op oth­er social and per­son­al skills, plus they even get paid a mod­est amount of pock­et money for their involvement!

We have close links with our loc­al church school, St Gil­ber­t’s, and a high­light of the pre-Christ­mas sea­son has been hav­ing our Juni­or Choir join with their school choir, plus oth­er loc­al chil­dren who were invited to ‘Come & be a chor­is­ter’ for the after­noon, for All Saints’ Christingle ser­vice this year. It was amaz­ing to be able to com­pletely fill our choir stalls with loc­al chil­dren, who all sang brilliantly!

Our ser­vice of ‘Car­ols by Candle­light’ was also a huge high point of the Christ­mas sea­son at All Saints’. This saw both Adult and Juni­or choirs singing, both sep­ar­ately and togeth­er, to a packed-out church. We were ably sup­por­ted by organ­ist Ivan Lin­ford, and the ser­vice was even broad­cast on the loc­al radio sta­tion ‘Rut­land & Stam­ford Sound’.

Freelance Work

Along­side all this busy­n­ess in Stam­ford, it has been good to keep freel­ance work going on along­side. It has been a pleas­ure to join the staff of Stam­ford Endowed Schools as one of their School Organ­ists, and to now be work­ing with their Chapel Choir. Teach­ing my organ pupils, par­tic­u­larly observing all their pro­gress, remains a pleas­ure too. A more sombre side to my pro­fes­sion­al life comes from hav­ing joined the team of organ­ists at War­ren Hill Crem­at­ori­um in Ket­ter­ing – one of the few crem­at­or­ia to still employ live musicians… 

Finally, it is always a joy to be asked to play for oth­er groups and along­side oth­er musi­cians, a recent high­light hav­ing been per­form­ing the first half of J S Bach’s Christ­mas Ora­tor­io with Col­legi­um Laur­eatum in my long­time role as their rehears­al accom­pan­ist and con­tinuo play­er. It has been good to form new links; I enjoyed play­ing for the choir of St Wul­fram’s, Grantham, provid­ing cov­er for an even­song of music includ­ing Edward Bairtstow’s fant­ast­ic anthem Blessed city, heav­enly Salem (even at only three days emer­gency notice!).

Into the New Year

2024 has, fol­low­ing our relo­ca­tion to Stam­ford after many years in Cam­bridge, been a year of new begin­nings. I am thank­ful for the new oppor­tun­it­ies that this has provided and for all the new con­nec­tions that have come about because of this change; I am look­ing for­ward to con­tinu­ing to cul­tiv­ate many of these new pos­sib­il­it­ies through the next year. I am also mak­ing a res­ol­u­tion to endeav­our to keep this site more up to date to fol­low the pro­gress of these devel­op­ments. There will be some site changes in early 2025 to enable this.

For now though, with the busy­n­ess of the Christ­mas sea­son now past, all that remains to say is Happy New Year, and here’s to 2025!

Bene­dict