Salisbury Cathedral School News
27/09/2011
20th Anniversary Celebrations for the Girl Choristers
On the weekend of 24th/25th September Salisbury Cathedral celebrated the 20th anniversary of the girls' choir with a grand reunion. We welcomed back almost 80 former girl choristers and their parents dating right back to the founding choristers from 1991. The weekend included a celebratory concert and a live broadcast of Morning Worship on Radio 4 and concluded with the present choir welcoming four new choristers. The girls instantly gelled into a choir that sounded as if they had been singing together all their lives which in a way they had. That sound will live with us all for a very long time and reflected the continuity of teaching the girls have received from three directors of Music - Richard Seal, Simon Lole and David Halls – across the 20 years.
David Halls, the present Director of Music, said “This was a great two days of singing and fun and I was genuinely overwhelmed that so many of our former choristers made the journey to Salisbury for the celebration. It was exciting hearing the combined voices of one hundred of our former and current girl choristers singing as one choir and can truly say that this was a one-off opportunity to hear them.” It was also great to be able to rekindle so many friendships with parents and the girls and the weekend included a reception for former parents to compare notes on the past 20 years.
It was in 1991, the same year in which the 900th anniversary of the founding of the very first boys' choir was celebrated, that Salisbury became the first English Cathedral to form a separate and independent foundation for girl choristers. They sang their first service in October of that year and nowadays the weekly services are equally divided between the boy and girl choristers. Since 1991, almost 120 girls have been choristers at Salisbury. A significant number have subsequently become choral scholars in the Oxbridge Chapel Choirs, and some have sung with the country's top choral groups including the Monteverdi Choir and The Sixteen. Several are making names for themselves on the international music circuit.
Ian Wicks
Photography by Ash Mills
