Herald AV Publications

HAVPCD350 – Carols from Chichester Cathedral

	Disk Title	Carols from Chichester Cathedral
		Chichester Cathedral Choir
	Soloists	Mark Wardell – Organ
	Choir	Chichester Cathedral Choir
	Conductor	Sarah Baldock
	Location	Chichester Cathedral
	Date Recorded	August 2009
	Audio Tracks	20

Christmas is a special time for Chichester Cathedral Choir. In addition to a run of concerts at the Festival Theatre and services for radio and local organizations, the Choir sings the traditional services on Christmas Eve and Day, and three Cathedral services of lessons and carols.

The selection of music for Carols from Chichester Cathedral is intended to capture the spirit of these services, which are popular with the young and old alike. Some of the usual congregational carols, with the familiar David Willcocks descants, sit alongside other Christmas favourites such as In the bleak mid-winter and Tomorrow shall be my dancing day. Mark Wardell’s Rocking was specially written for the Choristers for this CD, and like David Hill’s Away in a manger demonstrates the power of a good tune in the hands of a skilful arranger.

The Lay Vicars sing one to a part in Brian Kay’s version of Gaudete, and at the other end of the spectrum is the atmospheric full choir work Lux aurumque by the contemporary American composer, Eric Whitacre. The Sussex Carol is particularly appropriate for Chichester Cathedral Choir: the melody is reputed to have been collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp in the West Sussex village of Monk’s Gate. The Cathedral Choir is accompanied on the Hill organ by Mark Wardell, who also plays three contrasting settings for solo organ of In dulci jubilo and J.S. Bach’s Chorale Prelude Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her – ‘From heaven above, to earth I come’.

Chichester Cathedral Choir is one of the most respected Cathedral choirs in the country, and is particularly noted for its wide-ranging liturgical repertoire, which forms the backbone of the daily offering of worship in the beautiful acoustic of the Cathedral. The statutes at Chichester provide for eighteen trebles and six Lay Vicars. The Lay Vicars are all professional singers and live in or near the Cathedral Close. The Choristers are educated at the Prebendal School where they start as “Probationers” in Year 3 or 4 (age 8-9), and usually after one year they become full Choristers.

Bursaries of up to 100% of the school fees are available, and informal chorister auditions can be arranged throughout the year for any boys from age 7: no previous singing experience is necessary.

As well as their singing, Choristers learn the piano and an orchestral instrument, and take part in ensembles and music-making of all kinds in the thriving music department at the Prebendal School. Most Choristers win major music scholarships to secondary school. Chichester Cathedral Choir gives an annual concert in the Chichester Festivities and performs in the Southern Cathedrals Festival. The Choir regularly tours abroad, and in recent years has visited France, Northern Bavaria (Bamberg, Bayreuth, Nurenberg and Würzburg), and makes frequent visits to Chartres. In spring 2005, the Choir made a hugely successful tour to South Africa.

Sarah Baldock took up the post of Organist and Master of the Choristers at Chichester Cathedral in April 2008. She was previously Assistant Director of Music at Winchester Cathedral where she accompanied the Choir in daily services, tours, broadcasts and recordings. She founded the Winchester Cathedral Girls’ Choir in 1998, and was its Director until 2008. She has been a faculty member of the Calgary, Edinburgh and Oundle Organ Courses, and has taken part in education projects at the Royal Festival Hall and Birmingham Symphony Hall. She is a Trustee Council member of the Royal College of Organists and Organ Performance Tutor at Southampton University, and has directed choral workshops in the UK, USA, Norway and Sweden.

Mark Wardell has been Assistant Organist at Chichester Cathedral since 1997, serving for five of those years as Director of Music at the Prebendal School, the Cathedral’s Choir School. He had previously held positions at Royal Holloway College University of London, St George’s Chapel Windsor Castle, and Christ’s Hospital Horsham. His work in Chichester involves him in numerous live BBC broadcasts and recordings, the Southern Cathedrals Festival and Chichester Festivities.