now boarding

Vision of a choir at work

The Cathedral has started posting a few photos of life at St Paul's online and this is a particularly fine example, it was taken as the choir were singing O Adonai during this year's Advent service.

 As photography is not allowed in the Cathedral, these images are rare and valuable, especially if your son is in them.

 

O Adonai and Advent

And now begins Advent; starting with two Advent processional services and culminating in two services on Christamas day itself via Handel's Messiah and Britten's Ceremony of Carols. All this in addition to the daily rhythm of Cathedral services. No wonder that the nurses work overtime to ensure that absences are kept to a minimum.

These additional services, ceremonies and concerts are hugely popular and the usually unfurnished North and South aisles are set out with seats for the few thousand who will attend, listen and worship.

The first Advent took place last night and our favourite Anthem is the Antiphon, O Adonai.

The choir breaks into two; boys and men's voices, each under the north and south transepts. Tom explained the boys' rather unique improvised performance.

"... the piece has a section which is is divided into five phrases, when the conductor brings you in you sing one phrase, whichever one, and you must have a five second break in between. You keep singing in your own order, so say you could do phrase two, phrase four or phase one then phrase five. When the conductor puts his hand up, you complete the rest of the phrases, then stop."

"... There's a solo at the beginning, and he sings all five sections of the phrase all through, then we start our orders, then once everyone's stopped, the soloist sings another solo but higher. Last night Hugh hit a top C, and that was quite amazing."

"The vicars Choral just sing the whole piece altogether, straight through."

Technically it might sound a little tricky, messy even but the experience is awesome. Add the natural acoustics of the dome, a deep and resonant bass solo and the result is truly breathtaking.

 

 

 

 

Simon Russell Beale on being a Chorister

One of St. Paul's ex-choristers, Simon Russell Beale has been  in the media a fair bit recently. He's been presenting a series on Sacred Music on the BBC, he's filming a new series of 'Spooks' and he's going to perform in King Lear at the National in 2012.

On the back of Sacred Music, he was a guest on The Choir with Aled Jones when amongst other things, he talked briefly about his time as a Chorister.

Here's a clip.

 Simon Russell Beale

Magnificat solo tonight then live on BBC radio Choral Evensong tomorrow.

Tom's just told us last night that he's singing a solo in today's Evensong - during the Magnificat. We don't really ever get much notice and the actual soloist can change at the last minute but Mum reckons she can make it; sadly I can't. This solo is particularly meaningful as he'll be at his place in the quire this time whereas before his solos were during the Introit which were sung at the high alter.

Then Wednesday sees the whole Cathedral choir singing live on BBC radio 3's Choral Evensong.

I'd love to be there too, sadly there's a parent's evening with Tom's teacher, but that's another story.

That was the first weekend in the Cathedral

SSo this was going to be a fairly important test for all of us. For Theo - how would he deal with staying at school all week and the weekend? For us, how would we cope with him not not being at home for seven nights? And practically, what would this new style weekend be like?  

First observations were that this was a bit of a success.

I visited Friday evening after supper and he was really happy - I guess those few occasions of not being able to collect him at the normal Friday time of 3.40 actually paid off - this sense of stepped preparation clearly works. In fact, and this is always a good sign, he told me "You can go now Daddy".

We didn't go up on Saturday morning ('normal' visiting or leave is from 10.00 - 15.00 CHECK!!! ) but as it was our wedding anniversary, we visited after supper (en route to an evening out). This time the boys were settling in for a movie and we spoke only briefly - clearly he was more interested in the entertainment than us. That said he was quite happy and comfortable; 'tuck' was going to be brought to them ;-)

There are often activities planned at the weekend - that will need to be a separate post - and clearly that arrangement works well, and is easier in the summer with the better weather. Luckily there is a huge variety of activities available close by and his time they visited one of the larger modern art galleries in town.

We weren't too sure of the visiting 'procedures'. We had thought we cold visit after the Sunday Eucharist, be with him the afternoon for the few hours until Evensong (mercifully earlier at 15.15 on a Sunday) - but this was not to be the case.Clearly after years of experience, the school believe it's better the boys have the afternoon to chill' before Evensong, in preparation for an evening at home.

Of course we're learning so much at this time and it's a wee bit strange to have your weekend dictated by the school and the choir's commitments. Strange only in as much as we're not used to it.

So come Sunday afternoon, we were all really excited and arrived in good time to take our places in the quire (this Cathedral refers to the quire as the place where the choir perform - but other churches refer to choir stalls etc. etc.

I've been at Evensong and sat in the congregation but that's nothing compared to the experience of sitting in the quire. The sound is so much better - particularly being able to hear the trebles with so much clarity. One of the year 8 boys solo'd in Nunc Dimitis (CHECK!!!) which was beautiful; his parent's were obviously very chuffed.

You sit up high and can look diagonally at the choristers, so siting in Cantoris you can see the choir on Decani.

Unfortunately since we last visited, Tom had switched sides as it were so we only saw him as he processed in and out. We'll know next time! 

He looked great, not yet in a white cassock, flanked by two of the older boys, processing beautifully. Awesome!

It was also lovely to be with the other chorister parents - and there were a good few of them along with younger siblings.

After the service we collected Tom from school and pretty much drove straight home. The the evening few by, upper, a movie then off to bed fr an early 5.40 wake-up tobe back at school for 07.30 'sigh'.

The weekend was full of other activities too, ballet and party for his younger sister, our wedding anniversary on Saturday and on Sunday, I ran a youth talk at our local church - so it seems we can successfuly juggle - given plenty of organisation and a little luck!

He's acted up!

Awesome news today as I visit Tom to help him with his prep.

I acted up today Daddy!

I can't quite believe my ears, so no longer a mere probationer learning the ropes; the Director of Music asked him to perform in the choir stalls with his fellow choristers. He performed, he sang in the choir.

He must have done well as he received a house point too.

He said he loved it, it made him feel excited and proud. So are we!

The desks

I asked Tom to draw a plan of the space in the cyrpt where the choristers rehearse, the choir practice room. Here it is.

So from left to right, clockwise, there's the first desk, second and third desks. The dots represent the probationers and Tom is on the far right, second from the end.

'HCH' is the head chorister, so clearly the different ages are mixed up and they sit at the same places from practice to practice. In the middle is the choir master's grand piano.

First term review

I guess it says something when your intensity  of  blogging varies. At the beginning of the school year we were posting several times each week but since half term their frequency rapidly decreased down to one or less a week.

Clearly this says a lot about what was going on at school, our questions, concerns and the number of fresh observations. It probably also spoke to how busy Dad was at work.

So come the end of the first full term, we're all much more aware of the processes and procedures, the rules and regulations of the school, choir and boarding. Things of course are still changing; there are some major changes to the staff, for example. (If you know which school Tom is at, you'll know what I mean). 

Here are some of the main points of interest:

Unknown unknowns

I think all of us probationer parents suffered from not knowing what we didn't know (as Jahari's window would put it). From 'Peris' to 'Dec', music practice and prep. The point here is that we often had to email other parents to get the answers as I guess there was a bit of an assumption on the school's part that we knew what everything meant.

Boarding

This has always been the thing with Tom; he hasn't liked the boarding at all - at least that's what he always tells us. We know to begin with he was very homesick, but after half-term there were signs that was changing and now in the Christmas holidays he even said that he was getting used to it. 

Occasionally the nurses say, they need to shuffle the boys around a bit. This happened in Tom's case as one or two of the boys in his dorm tended to stay awake a little longer than they should have, and kept Tom up. They're a little older than Tom and this meant our Tom suffered a bit. So after the change around boarding generally got a lot easier for Tom (a fact noticed by many).

Still, if Tom ever complains about this whole experience, he refers to the boarding, saying he loves the school, the choir, but hates the boarding. This will be a problem when he's 'made up' to the full choir.

Prep and music practice

This is an interesting one as the thing about boarding is that by definition we're not around to supervise and support. Neither mum or dad boarded so we're learning as we go along; to begin with for example, we didn't even realise he had a prep 'diary' where each day's prep was clearly listed. So each evening after supper the boys have an hour or so to do their 20 minutes prep, 20 minutes music practice and some reading and when mum and dad don't visit, we rely on Tom and the available staff to ensure he does what he's meant to do. Clearly the staff do a great job - but it ain't easy, especially when the boys are tired. Still, they're getting used to it and there are senior boys to set an example.

As neither mum  or dad are 'players', music practice is becoming a challenge for us to supervise. Tom's grasp of music theory has quickly surpassed ours and although his mum's a singer and dad has the basics, we believe this is one area where the school could provide some additional support.

Routine

There's a lot of personal responsibility given the boys and the school and choir demand a lot during the week. This routine is critical in helping them navigate all that is required of them - routine is both guide and distraction when they're missing home.

I have to say that the boarding staff, the nurses and helpers are all hugely understanding of the boarders and their parents - in fact their role is pretty much critical in making it all work. We make a point of letting them know how much they are appreciated.

A solo is no big thing

Tom's solo'd in public a couple of times now, both carol services. He didn't really make a big thing about either, in fact it was the head of boarding that told us about one of the. The thing is, he takes it all in his stride, there's absolutely no stress, it's all completely normal - it's just what he does.

Hello and welcome to this blog.

"now boarding" is a blog about our son Tom who is seven years old, who next week, on September 03 2008, for the first time in his life will be starting boarding school.

We live here the UK in a regular house with a garden. I'm a designer and my wife, Jill is a nurse. Tom has a younger sister, Imogen who's five years old and goes to a popular local state school. We have a good, supportive extended family.

Tom will be starting at one of the 49 Cathedral Choir Schools in just one weeks time. Neither I nor my wife attended boarding school as children, in fact we can't quite believe this is happening.

This blog is intended to do a few things.

First, it's a place for us as a family to capture and share our thoughts about the experience.

Second, I hope it will be a useful resource for those contemplating sending their son - or daughter - off to board at choir school.

I'm sure that over the next days, weeks, months and years - God willing - many things will change; we're just not quite sure what or how. It's this sense of the unknown that we want to keep here in this blog.

One thing. We have decided to change all the names, so although what we report will be factual, names of persons and places are made up. This is in part to protect the privacy of our son, his school mates, and our family, but also the school, it's teachers and staff.