Ysenda Maxtone Graham

Why is Sheffield Cathedral’s choir being disbanded for ‘inclusivity’?

(Photo: iStock)

The Dean of Sheffield, the Very Revd Peter Bradley, comes across as a likeable man of sound mind and brisk sense of humour. Of his own liturgical tastes, he assures me, ‘drums and guitars are not my tradition. The London Oratory is more my world, musically speaking. I cannot say too strongly how committed I and the cathedral are to the Anglican choral tradition and evensong.’ As for his current portfolio, he says, ‘I’m Acting Precentor at the moment. I wish I’d been paid for it. God knows I’ve earned it.’

Thursday was a frantic day for the poor man, as he fought to explain to the nation’s outraged press the cathedral’s announcement that they’ve closed its renowned 40-strong choir of men, boys and girls, and are about to appoint a new Canon Precentor who will work on creating ‘a music department and choir ready for the exciting future of the mixed urban community in which we live and work’ and ‘the development of a fresh vision for our worship,’ with ‘renewed ambition for engagement and inclusion’. What we want to know is, why on earth is he disbanding the choir he already has, that produces, to a professional standard, the very thing he is so ‘strongly committed’ to?

‘There’s been a decline in recruitment over the last few years,’ he explains to me – which is exactly what the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster also claimed when he emasculated Westminster Cathedral Choir last year. I don’t quite buy it, in either case. ‘We want to draw more people into the life of the choir.’ So, they’re planning a different kind of recruitment? By ‘more’, I think he means primary-school children and non-professional adults from all over the city. Lovely and diverse. All very well, in theory, but in practice every cathedral relies on its core choir: a small regular set of highly trained singers who turn up on time, every time.

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