Director of Music

Without the generous and ongoing support of the Headmaster and Head of Music in making the resources of Christ’s College available to us, the Cathedral Choir’s ongoing future would have been very bleak. Strangely, a somewhat uncomfortable sense of ‘normality’ is creeping into the choir’s post– earthquake routine. Morning rehearsals for the boys in the Music School of Christ’s College
are extremely convenient and commodious. Full choir rehearsals these days are in Selwyn House, they are cramped and constricted, but will improve when the school auditorium re-opens in a few weeks. Achieving the required ambience for our traditional cathedral repertoire, (written for expansive European cathedrals) in the College Chapel will always be an impossible challenge . Though I am delighted that a number of the congregation tell me they enjoy the immediacy of the choir’s vocal presence. As well as the Sunday services, we are singing two week day evensongs in the Chapel - on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We are also making trips to local churches and communities on Wednesday evenings. To date, trips to Aranui, Ellesmere and Opawa are planned and are part of our new ministry to support and hearten the diocese’s distressed parishes. We have accepted an invitation to sing evensong at St Barnabas at Pentecost and are taking the choir into the wider community over the next few months, visiting Timaru in July and Geraldine in September. The latter will be fund raising concerts for “re-building the faith of Canterbury”. So the choir’s life - and our part in a cathedral’s unique role of sustaining opus dei - continues, somewhat strained, certainly different, but with an awareness of its present broader mission.
Brian Law