now boarding

Where to sit at the Advent Procession?

Bit of a strange title I admit, but it is an interesting question for the dedicated Chorister Family. Here's why.

This year will be our fifth and final Christmas as Chorister Parents and it presents quite possibly the very best musical feast you could imagine. There's the midnight mass and the perenial 'will our boy be caught yawning' question; the excitement and stamina of Christmas Day itself; the musical magic of Britten and Handel and the lighter entertainment of the Celebration; and then there are the two Advent Processions.

Musically more testing than the traditional carol services (and arguably richer) they're repeated over two evenings, I'm guessing to supply the huge demand. It's a good and long-ish service and one that sees the day pupils and the famous candle-lit procession.

But the question exists; where to sit?

The Cathedral is kind enough to reserve seats and organise tickets for us, which we sould remain grateful for, and for the Advent service our tickets are reserved for the usual Evensong spots in the Quire.

Which would be fine but the Choir is not actually in the Quire until about 3/4 of the way though the service. They start at the west end processing slowly through the Cathedral pausing to sing as they make their way eastwards.

The first year we attended (2009) and sat in the quire, we spent a large part of the service feeling just a little left out, although recompensed when the choir reached their final seats. I think it was the second year when one of the Wandsmen suggested that the best spot might in actual fact be somewhere around the middle of the Cathedral at the top of the nave where it meets the dome. The photo above shows the choir singing at this point and it was possible to sit even closer to the boys than usual. You also get to hear O Adonai up close, an eery, multi-textured piece with stunning bass and treble parts that cleverly uses the space.

So the middle of the Cathedral then? Well, the current Chapter have made a few changes to some of the services and I'd anticipate continued experimentation, and until we see the order of service, who knows.

Where to sit then? You decide. 

Of course if you're going to both processions you could have the best of both worlds...

  

 

What happened to years six and seven?

I guess the challenge you set your self when posting a diary format blog is the expectation, the requirement to post regularly, especially when the subject matter is liable to frequent and noteworthy change.

There are two reasons for this 2 year break in posting; one that we moved house early in the summer tem of 2011 and soon after I started work on the London 2012 Olympics which pretty much took up all my available time until late 2012. I guess the second reason is that year six and to a degree year seven seemed at the time to be realtively unremarkeable, the comfortable middle period.

Of course they weren't, and I'll aim to report some of those activities, but at the time it just all seemed like business as usual.

Of course Tom did special things; he worked super hard at school and his end of terms grades seemed to get better and better. He undertook an increasing number of important and high profile solos. His Cello went from strength to strength, he won cups and prizes. The choir toured, recorded and performed its duties at special, televised occassions. We started planning his next school.

All of which he seemed to take in his stride as to a degree did we, his family. 

But now he's in his final year, year eight and the hike up the steep slope that started five years ago is now an equally short (how short?) descent. He was awarded the honour of being made Head Chorister and has attended to those duties with aplomb, taking part in the ceremony to admit new Choristers at the first Sunday Evensong after returning from summer holidays. We can remember him being admitted as if it was only yesterday and so it feels as if the circle for this chorister family is completing.

 

The summer term starts here!

We had a great Easter holiday, of course it does feel a tad long for us but not so for Tom; he's more of the opinion that he's earned it and I think he's right. As usual he spent a good chunk of time playing with his sister but mostly I know he values time by himself, which is totally understandable and common amongst the other choristers. Other than that, the three weeks and couple of days whizzed by.

He did manage to leave his prep in the classroom (again understandable at the end of a hectic holy week), and for possibly the 3rd holiday in a row I found myself visiting the school mid-holiday to collect. Need to watch out for that in future.

His end of term report was excellent again, his grades improving quite noticeably, clearly a sign that he's increasingly comfortable with the boarding and in fact the whole setup. 

The painters were in and the parts of the school that I saw looked clean and bright with a good lick of paint; I know that major works are reserved for summer holidays.

 
 Returning for a new term has never been a strong point for Tom - we've had a few wobbles previously but for this term he's really transformed; no tears (that I noticed), well organised and totally up for it. In fact he's been talking more and more about the repertoire (and in particular this Sunday's Eucharist Sanctus), which must be a good sign.

The Director of Music thought this a good sign too, and at the term's early Chorister Parent evenings he told us how well tom was doing. Not perfect of course, looking for Tom to 'let rip' occasionally and not worry about perfection.

 
  
Always good to get insight on his work in the Cathedral; and in September he'll have been there two years (he started age seven), so it's certainly a good, robust and gentle development.

The Chorister Parent evenings are annual informal, one to one opportunities to speak to the Director of Music and the singing teacher; but it's a tight schedule, barely 10 minutes allocated per chorister.

Other events take place at every beginning of term, the PTA's sale of second hand uniform sale effectively recycles valuable clothing and generates good revenue for the PTA to spend on the Children. (The most recent big ticket item the PTA has supported is a new school minibus).

 
 

Not your usual Christmas Day.

Christmas Day is significant for many reasons, not least that ours will be quite different from most; at least for he next 4 or 5 years or so. For Tom it represents the finale of the whole year (Holy week withstanding), most especially for a 9-year old third-desk, it's success as reaching and passing successfully through this super-tough month of advent.

So after an 11.30 Midnight Eucharist the night before, he woke up a little later than usual to see stockings under the Christmas tree in their dorm. Tom had a yoyo, a pot of gooey play putty. After getting dressed, they went down to the TV room where their presents were. Boys had £27 to spend on gifts from the Argos catalogue courtesy of the school, the staff and the Cathedral.

After breakfast there was a long rehearsal after which the boys stayed in the Cathedral as the congregation arrived.

We drove up town for the family Eucharist at 11.00, then into the school straight after for a full Christmas lunch shared with the whole choir and chorister parents, the vicars choral, some of the Cathedral staff and the school's residential staff. A beautiful doo, lovely food and so lucky yet slightly weird to be spending Christmas Day with anyone other than close family.

 
 

Here's what the Head chorister at Winchester Cathedral has to say about working on Christmas Day.

 
 

Then after lunch we all went over with the boys to sit in the quire for the Festal Evensong. Their last duty for the year. Slightly tipsy, rather tired but what a services. Short and sweet (no sermon, thank goodness) with the beautiful and fitting For unto us a child is born from Handel's Messiah.

After packing up the rest of Tom's stuff, we bundled into the car and eventually arrived home around 5.30. At this point our plans might have been different from other families, but we couldn't stop our two opening their gifts as we stoked up the fire and sat back to watch Harry Potter... and relaxed into Christmas.

The second steep learning curve.

This first month has been a real roller-coaster. Right from the very first evening back we were thrown curve balls and had many new issues to deal with. Some of these we knew a little about (like Tom boarding the whole week) and some unknown (the impact of staffing issues).

Even with the hindsight of a year as probationer parents, nothing could really prepare us for a second steep learning curve a year on from our first. Sure, many things are the same but a new headmaster and our boy being made up to be a full-time chorister presented possibly  a steeper transition into his second year than we had anticipated.

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!

More acting up and communications

More great news this week. All four of the probationers acted up on Monday; which was good for them all as a unit (although there are two year threes, one year four and a year five amongst them).

Apart from Paul who only started at half-term, they've all had since last September together.

Then Tom acted u again tonight - so that three times in just over a week.

One of the nurses, Tom's tutor group teacher (who leads a choir) and one of the gaps all said how well Tom's doing; academically, chorally and boarding. The nurse then went on to tell me how next half term (that's the last 4 weeks of the school year) will see the Probationers acting up alternate weekends; which means staying up at school Friday and Saturday nights.

I told Tom this and he wasn't at all happy ("I want to leave before I get made up") which we've not heard for a while. Stupid me, we should have broken it to him more gently.

Mind you, it did make me wonder just when the school was going to inform us of these two weekends. I did get the sense that we the parents have to be proactive and ask the questions. The Chorister Handbook might map out the first year and the major milestones.

Maybe that's what the blog cold do?

'The potential to be a model chorister'

Well that's what the choirmaster and his singing teacher said.

This was the first real opportunity for us to speak one-to-one with theses two important people, who are in reality two individuals critical to his choral development. They're also really nice and very talented people.

There wasn't much we could say except describe the way Tom behaves at home and in our local parish church. how he loves all genres of music, how he sings to himself. He's clearly taken a lot on board, and we know he's really focussed on the technique.

That said, his teachers acknowledged his ability, his 'talent'. For sure that's what they were looking for when one year ago we first visited the school.

That makes us mighty proud.

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.

'Unknown unknowns' and the 'Head Probationer'

A few things have come to light this weekend after a whole bunch of emailing back and forth from Chorister Parents (CPs) . I reckon this has been stimulated by two key events.

Firstly there's been a major piece of news about a key member of staff.

Secondly it's half term and for us probationer parents that's meant a bit of a shake-down as we take stock of the experience so far.

So, what have we learned?

1. There is an emerging and overwhelming desire for the CPs to get together to capture and share information and support each other. Both officially - with the blessing of school and Dean; and unofficially - that is, socially (and proximity to the school should not be a deciding factor).

2. There are a great many historical reasons why things are the way they are and indeed many aspects of the CP / School / Cathedral relationship that remain special and well worth preserving; but that they might still be improved.

3. That the CPs have many different and disparate views but share a desire for their boys to prosper in the school's special atmosphere - after all that's why we're here.

4. That all the staff, including residential and academic do a wonderful job.

5. Terminology:
'Can' is Cantoris, 'Dec' is Decani, the two sides of the quire where the choir sit. Decani (Dec) is the south side where the Dean sits and Cantoris (Can) is the north side. In other words, looking at the altar, Dec is on the right and Can on the left. Traditionally Dec is 1st treble and Can 2nd treble as is music parts if the top part spilts into two. Chorister parents have seat reserved on Can (so they can see their boys on Dec) but there is no vice versa.

'Peris' are the peripatetic music staff; ie. instrumental teachers.

6. I also heard from Tom that he reckons he's as good as 'Head Probationer'. On further interrogation, this is clearly untrue. The tyke.