Music at Chichester Cathedral
Photo: Simon Futcher
During normal term-time, the Cathedral Choir sings at the following services:
WEEKDAYS AND SATURDAY
Evensong every day at 5.30pm (except Wednesday, when Evensong is said, or sung by a visiting choir)
SUNDAY
Mattins (10.00am), Sung Eucharist (11.00am) and Evensong (3.30pm)
Click here for current Music List for Services
THE CATHEDRAL CHOIR
The statutes at Chichester provide for eighteen Trebles and six Lay Vicars. The Choristers and Probationers are educated at the Prebendal School - the Cathedral's own Choir School - in West Street, where they are required to be boarders.
As well as their singing, Choristers learn the piano and an orchestral instrument, spending at least eighteen hours each week on musical training and performance. The Lay Vicars are professional singers who attend the Cathedral daily except on Wednesdays.
The choir sings a minimum of eight services in the Cathedral each week, in addition to concerts, broadcasts, recordings and tours. It is one of the most highly respected Cathedral choirs in the country and is particularly noted for the beautiful and gentle tone which it is able to produce in the sympathetic acoustic of the Cathedral.
On stage, the Choir has appeared with artistes as diverse as Petula Clark, Richard Stilgoe, the King's Singers, the Cambridge Buskers, the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and Cantabile. Television appearances have included performances in Placido Domingo's Christmas Choice and Rumpole of the Bailey. In 1985, their recording of Cathedral Music by Geoffrey Burgon won a 'Critics' Choice of the Year Award' in the Gramophone magazine.
The Choir regularly tours abroad. In recent years it has visited the Cahors region of France and have made several visits to Northern Bavaria where they have performed in Bamberg, Nurenberg and Wurzburg. The Choir also makes regular visits to Chartres (the city with which Chichester is twinned).
The Morse-Boycott Bursary Fund makes the form of bursaries for boys at cathedral choir schools. See foot of page.
ALAN THURLOW
Organist and Master of the Choristers
Alan Thurlow was born in Essex and was educated at Bancroft's School, Woodford Green. He read music at Sheffield University before going to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, for a period of research into pre-Reformation English Church music. In 1973, he was appointed Sub-Organist at Durham Cathedral, serving first under Dr Conrad Eden and later under Richard Lloyd. While at Durham, he combined his duties at the Cathedral with those of Director of Music at the Chorister School and part-time Lecturer in Music at Durham University.
In 1980, he was appointed Organist and Master of the Choristers at Chichester Cathedral, in succession to John Birch. In addition to his work at the Cathedral, his many outside commitments include being a member of the Executive Committee of the Friends of Pallant House Gallery, an Organ Adviser for the Diocese of Chichester, Chairman of the Friends of Cathedral Music and an area representative for the Royal School of Church Music.
He has travelled with the Cathedral Choir and the RSCM to France, Holland, Germany, South Africa and the United States. During his time at Chichester, he has been responsible for the restoration of the Cathedral's historic pipe organ, after a silence of fourteen years, during which services were accompanied on an electronic organ. More recently, he was appointed Chairman of the Organs Advisory Committee of the Council for the Care of Churches. In 1995 and 1996 he served as President of the Cathedral Organists' Association.
MARK WARDELL
Assistant Organist
Mark Wardell was born in 1968 and studied the organ with Clifford Hartley. In 1987 he was elected organ Scholar at Royal Holloway College, London. During the three years he spent reading Music, he travelled Europe as a recitalist, accompanist and soloist with the college choir and recorded a set of improvisations for German Television.
In 1990 he moved to St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle as Organ Scholar working under Christopher Robinson, where he was involved in many royal and state occasions. During this time he held a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music where he studied with Nicholas Danby, taking master-classes with David Sanger and Ton Koopman.
From 1992 until 1997, Mark was Organist and Assistant Music Master at Christ's Hospital, Horsham where he featured on a number of commercial recordings of Choral and Organ Music which were released through IMP Classics.
Since September 1997, Mark has been Assistant Organist at Chichester Cathedral and Director of Music at the Prebendal School, the cathedral's choir school, where he has been involved in numerous BBC Broadcasts, the Chichester Festivities and the Southern Cathedrals' Festival, in addition to his primary role of accompanying the cathedral choir in the daily liturgy of the cathedral.
Away from Sussex, Mark has toured with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in France and Spain, and to Brazil as a guest of the British Council. He has also performed as a continuo player with the European Chamber Orchestra. Mark is a tutor on the RSCM Organists' Training Scheme and he pursues an active recital schedule with recent venues including Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral and St Paul's Cathedral. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists.
THE ORGAN
The Chichester Cathedral organ contains pipework by many famous English builders.
Click here to read more about the organ
Morse-Boycott Bursary Fund
(formerly St Mary-of-the-Angels Song School Trust)
The Fund was founded in 1932, originally as a parochial Choir School but from 1935 to 1970 served the Church at large and now takes the form of bursaries for boys at cathedral choir schools.
Trustees are the Dean and Chapter of Chichester.
Applications should be made to the administrator:
The Communar, The Royal Chantry, Cathedral Cloisters, Chichester, West Sussex
PO19 1PX.
Telephone: (01243) 812489
Fax: (01243) 812499