May 2008New College Choir Association Newsletter
From the Conductor’s Stand
Some of you may know that the government has recently launched its Music Manifesto, encouraging schools and communities to offer much more singing to children. At New College we don’t need to be convinced, and we have identified ways in which we can help the initiative. Importantly, in making the appointment last September of a full-time Assistant Organist (the admirable Steven Grahl), we have the means of providing outreach to the local primary schools: creating links, offering help and advice, and eventually drawing these schools into projects with New College Choir. Projects with three local schools are now well established, and during the next six months we plan to add another two. We are pleased that we can play this role. We are also conscious that by increasing the level of interest in singing in local schools we may help parents and children understand what it means to be a chorister at New College.
Another recent outreach/access initiative is an open offer open to sixth-formers to join us for a service: a ‘come-and-sing with New College Choir’ scheme. We are building up interest, and the takers so far have all gone away with a much better idea of what’s involved in being an academical clerk, and I hope inspired to make an application for a choral award. The scheme involves some risks for us (we do not audition our guests), but so far no embarrassment has arisen.
When you think about outreach in terms of the work and reputation of the Oxford choral foundations, there is another story to tell. At the risk of causing offence among other cultural activists in the University, I wonder whether any can boast the national and international reach of the choirs? Even within the narrower musical branding of the University, it is not our orchestras, chamber ensembles or soloists which are heard on a regular basis on radio stations of the USA, Australia, Europe and Japan; it is the choirs of the choral foundations. I hope the University is aware of the extensive and positive profiling it gets. At times it is possible to get a different impression. Those might be the times when admissions frameworks pay scant attention to the musical attributes of candidates. ‘Why should being able to sing bring any special advantage?’ The answer might be that whatever the subject, the choral foundations offer a world-class education, and a world-class ‘academic product’ for Research Assessment purposes. The missing link is having our undergraduate singers ‘audited’: having their singing evaluated as part of their degree course. This has been achieved for students reading Music. It remains to be achieved for the rest. Without talented singers, all that has been achieved during many decades of activity, if not centuries, will be reduced to the level of parochial interest. I hope we can avoid that!
A final vignette: the HM Ambassador’s residence in Tallinn, where the Choir was singing in December, for guest of the Ambassador, including the whole of the Estonian top brass (earlier that day, or perhaps the day before, the Estonian navy had taken delivery of a mine-sweeper the Brits can’t afford to keep any more). As we sang our way through the Coventry Carol, the be-medalled generals and chiefs of staff stood to attention, sifting through their knowledge of fourteenth-century English, demonstrating exquisite politeness, and providing one of the most impressive sartorial touches I have encountered in my work with the Choir. Another message about the Choir’s outreach: we can get to the most interesting of places.
Edward Higginbottom
Read The sound of life, an article about Edward Higginbottom in Oxford Today magazine (opens in new window).
