Music at St Mary’s
Music plays an important role in the worship at St Mary’s. A wide variety of hymns, both traditional and more modern, is used for sung services, and everyone sings the setting at the Sunday Parish Eucharist. An enthusiastic mixed-voice Parish Choir (currently around 15 strong) generally sings twice a month, rehearsing for 45 minutes before the service in which they are performing. Music sung by the choir has ranged from plainsong to recently composed works and a member of the choir acts as cantor for the psalm each week. Recently, a member of the choir has been working with the children of the Sunday school, to strengthen and to develop singing there, and the children have performed successfully at a number of All-Age worship services.
For major Festivals, vocal and instrumental soloists (and sometimes professional choirs) are employed. (Here is a list of the music for Easter 2009.) During 2008, professional musicians contributed to some nine services, in addition to those choirs arranged to perform at weddings, funerals and memorial services. Soloists in 2008-2009 included Ann De Renais and Ana-Maria Rincon (soprano), Andrew Radley (countertenor), Malcolm Banham (tenor), Richard Fallas (bass), Stephen Keogh (trumpet) and Cerys Jones (violin).
At Christmas, a choir of eight professional singers performs for the annual Carol Service and, occasionally, members of the congregation have generously sponsored a professional choir to sing at a Parish Eucharist as part of personal birthday and anniversary celebrations. Singers performing at the church regularly include members of St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey choirs, the BBC Singers, Gabrieli Consort, Royal Opera House chorus and the Monteverdi Choir. Recent deputy organists have included Stephen Disley, Assistant Organist at Southwark Cathedral, and Iain Farrington, ex-St John’s College, Cambridge organ scholar and Proms soloist, and also former organ scholars from Magdalen College, Trinity College and King’s College, Cambridge.
The church has a well-maintained, two-manual Walker organ, a C. Bechstein grand piano and an electric piano. Members of the congregation are very supportive of the music at St Mary’s, taking a keen interest in the organ voluntaries and the solo and choral performances. From time to time many have attended performances by Nonsuch Singers (the London chamber choir conducted by the church’s Director of Music) at St. John’s, Smith Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields and Southwark Cathedral.
Graham Caldbeck
Director of Music
Graham Caldbeck read music at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a Choral Scholar. He has worked for much of his life in education, holding posts as Director of Music in Cheshire and London, Head of the Hampshire Specialist Music Course in Winchester and at the Royal College of Music, where for fifteen years he held a succession of posts, including Head of Undergraduate Studies and Head of Individual Studies. A former Assistant Organist at St Martin-in-the-Fields, he holds both the Fellowship and choral directing diplomas from the Royal College of Organists, and has worked as an accompanist and continuo player. Whilst teaching in Winchester, he regularly sang in the choir of Winchester Cathedral and conducted Southern Voices, the chamber choir that he founded in 1984. He is currently conductor of the Somerset Chamber Choir, the Mayfield Festival Choir in E. Sussex and Nonsuch Singers, recently described by the Times as ‘one of London’s leading chamber choirs’, which regularly performs in central London. In recent years he has directed choirs for services at St Paul’s, Hereford, Worcester and Ripon Cathedrals.