Education Opportunities
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The educational opportunities that the trust provides offer the choristers an opportunity to work with a range of different choral experts. This helps develop their ability to work with a range of different music directors.
General Music education:
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​Central to the induction of new trebles and their development, now through to leaving school at 18, is the tuition to enable trebles to progress through the RSCM graded exams. This is accomplished as part of the normal week on week rehearsals for Services, supplemented with group and individual tutorials. Since Tim took over the choir he has enabled 26 singers to progress to the RSCM Gold Award (the highest qualification they offer), and 14 Silver (Bishop's Award) and 12 Bronze (Dean's award).
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This general musical education is supplemented with more specific workshops with eminent practitioners are brought in to run workshops on specific topics:
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Professor Magnus Williamson
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The country experienced a national 'lock down' in 2020 which meant all churches were closed to the public. This did not deter the choir from continuing their educational development. The trust paid for Magnus to conduct a choral workshop on Tallis. This was delivered virtually in two parts, one for the choristers and another for the back row. Please click here to listen to the recording.
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The trust subsidised the cost of this workshop.
Gesualdo Six
Since 2021, St Wulfram’s Church Choir has worked in educational partnership with the award-winning international ensemble, the Gesualdo Six https://www.thegesualdosix.co.uk. The collaboration began during the third UK lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, when members of the Geusaldo Six led Zoom rehearsals for choristers, youth choir and adult singers. When in-person singing resumed in the summer of 2021, we welcomed the Gesualdo Six to St Wulfram’s to lead workshops with the choir and to film two videos with the youth choir, singing music by John Sheppard and Thomas Tallis. The videos are online, here: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=uLhMp2cLGoQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLu5G6XETWU. The collaboration continued with a concert and further workshops at St Wulfram’s in the autumn of 2021, and further visits both from individual singers and the full ensemble in 2022, supported by the Postlethwaite Foundation. We hope to continue and develop this partnership in the years to come.
The trust is subsidising the cost of these workshops and subsequent ongoing training.
The purpose of the training was to support vocal coaching for the choirs at St Wulfram’s. The Postlethwaite Music Foundation covered the entire cost of £1680.00 for which we are most grateful. The day should have concluded with a “tell and show’’ concert for family and friends but this sadly fell in a period of national mourning due to the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. However, a video was produced in collaboration with the Gesualdo Six and the Youth Choir.
The choir worked in three distinct groups: the children’s choir, the youth choir and the adult choir. This allowed for a tailored approach for each group. The workshops focussed on vocal technique including ensemble singing and intonation. The singing was all unaccompanied.
For the children’s choir the training proved to be successful, fun and friendly. They were able to engage well and it was a particularly valuable experience for the recently recruited choristers.
The youth choir is already a strong ensemble and started by performing with the G6 members, who were then able to plan a more tailored approach to their coaching involving a workshop studying polyphony, allowing them to build up confidence and musicianship. A new technique for the youth choir was to practice unconducted ensemble singing.
For the adults the main objective was to build confidence in their choral sound and this they were able to do very effectively as they could match the vocal parts of the consort.
Building on the success of the Saturday the G6 made an unscheduled stopover to the Sunday and were then able to participate in the music for the Parish Eucharist, singing with the choir.