Churches of St Peter & St Paul, Stokesley and St Martin, Seamer
Choir
Our choir leads the music at Sunday and special services as well as singing at weddings in our church.
Royal School of Church Music Celebration Day service at Durham
© Tim Adams
Ten of our choir were among the 300 who attended the Royal School of Church Music Celebration Day service at Durham on 15th May 2010, and were all in the column pictured above! Three or four of them can be clearly identified in black cassocks: the rest (including our Rector) were hidden by other taller singers. Among the other singers in this picture are a large contingent of boys and men from St. John's Broughton (Preston) - red, some of the dozen from Sunderland Minster - deep purple, and a singer from Holland in blue!
The service was directed by James Lancelot (Durham Cathedral) and Lindsay Gray (Director of the RSCM), and included awards made to Aled Jones, Richard Lloyd (formerly of Durham), Jeremy Suter (Carlisle), Prof Jeremy Dibble (Durham), and the long-serving choirmaster of Broughton, John Catterall. Music included Stanford's Te Deum in C (edited by Jeremy Dibble), Wesley's "Thou wilt keep him", and several hymns and anthems by other award recipients.
For many years the choir at the parish church has followed the chorister training scheme of the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM), now known as “Voice For Life”. Over the years most choristers have participated and progressed to whatever level has been appropriate.
All of our current membership have progressed through Light Blue to at least Dark Blue, with many going on to achieve the Red ribbon. All of these are assessed internally by the organist or choir director and involve varying degrees of Aural Tests, musical knowledge, participation and, at Red level, singing a solo in an act of worship.
Back in 1997, Katherine Karlsen became the first chorister from St Peter & Paul, Stokesley, to progress beyond the Red ribbon to Green, by attaining the Dean’s Chorister Award. At that time, and until very recently, this award was only available to choristers under the age of 16.
In 2004 the RSCM opened up the external awards of Dean’s and Archbishop’s chorister to participants of any age. The syllabus for these awards has been nationally validated and they have been renamed the Bronze and Silver Awards, with the addition of a further Gold Award.
Earlier this year Jenny James and Martin Bailey decided it would be good to enter for the Bronze award and see how good they really were at singing! As Saturday 29th July approached, this didn’t seem quite such a good idea.
So, after much practice with Vera Woodhouse, the morning of the exam arrived, as did the examiner who had travelled up from Whitby. There were 3 local candidates, Jenny and Martin were joined by a young lady from Northallerton, so the exams were to be held at the parish church. Each exam lasted about 30 minutes and involved solo singing of a hymn (partly unaccompanied), a psalm and an anthem, followed by lots of Aural Tests and many technical and theological questions about the musical items and the candidate’s participation in the choir and the life of the church.
Much nail-biting then ensued as the results were awaited. I am pleased to report that all three of the candidates passed (Martin passed with Merit) and are now entitled to wear the Bronze award medal together with the Green ribbon.
The awards will be officially presented by the Dean and Archbishop of York in York Minster at the Annual Diocesan Choir Festival on Saturday 7th October 2006 at 5.30pm. This service is open to all and is a wonderful chance to hear the massed choirs of many of the churches in the Diocese (from all denominations), as well as to see our successful choristers presented with their awards. I am sure that they would be pleased to see you there supporting them.
