Close Harmony Matthew Power reports on a drive to find church choristers that is having a major effect in state schools across the country  Britain was once called the land without music. Now there are those who fear it might become so again, as they lament the dwindling provision of music in Britain 's state schools. There is not just a shortage of choirs, orchestras and peripatetic instrumental teachers. In many cases there is no music at all, not even singing in assembly, if there still is such a thing.

There is a knock-on effect to this lack of basic music-making. Fewer children develop skills at intermediate level, and ultimately the UK produces fewer musicians. This increasing lack of musically experienced children also poses an imminent threat to a centuries-old tradition: the cathedral choirs.

The Choir Schools' Association (CSA) – the umbrella organisation for choristers and their mentors – is quick to detect any ripple in the crucial flow of new recruits to the choir stalls of Britain . And it has.
It has now launched a range of innovative counter-measures, designed to attract a new generation of musically deprived children into the highly charged atmosphere of the cathedral quire.

This rapidly developing initiative is being strikingly successful in boosting chorister recruitment. But as it reaches out into the community in search of tomorrow's young singers it is having a significant secondary impact: it is effectively re-creating and bolstering music-making in some of the country's most needy classrooms, acquainting a whole new generation with talents and abilities that could never otherwise have surfaced.

The prime mover of this wave of outreach is Richard White, previously chairman of the CSA and headmaster of Polwhele House, the choir school of Truro Cathedral . First-hand experience of increasingly difficult recruitment of choristers at Truro led to White's sharing his fears for the future with the CSA at its annual gathering. He followed this up with letters to every choir school head in the country. But White not only warned of an impending crisis for cathedrals; he also described the outreach work he had begun at Truro and the remarkable results it had so quickly garnered. Within just four years, 10 cathedrals country-wide have emulated the Truro project with local primary schools, all showing similarly glowing results.

There is neither secret recipe nor cutting-edge pedagogy behind the scheme, just hard work, inspiration and a desire from all the participants for a greater appreciation of music.

Through the county's schools' music service a number of primary schools, with little or no music provision, are identified and invited to participate in the scheme. Then the local cathedral director of music plus a handful of choristers spend an hour in the school, singing to, and then singing with, the children. This visit is followed by others, and usually the participating schools join together for a concert in the cathedral, attended by teachers, parents and friends.

White recounts his initial visit to Cornish primary schools in Cambourne and Redruth. ‘I went as headmaster of the choir school and took both organists from Truro Cathedral. We devised a programme to make best use of the one hour available. We communicated to primary school pupils that you don't have to be a sissy to sing - some of the choristers we took along were built like prop forwards and were very confident! They made a really good sound and the boys and girls were impressed. We got the choristers to sing with them, not at them. The choristers showed just how much a child's voice can do with a little training. Many of the children listened with mouths open in amazement.

‘The subsequent concert provided an opportunity for the schoolchildren's parents to have, in many cases, their first experience of the cathedral without feeling that they were being made to come to church.'

White stresses that one of the challenges in getting such an outreach scheme up and running is to involve all the necessary people in a single initiative. Choir school headmaster, organist, dean and chapter must all co-operate and join forces with the local county music service head. ‘It's about making all their musical agendas coincide.'

While the Truro project was fired by an initial need to cast the chorister recruitment net wider, now the broader implications for primary education are apparent. Because the time mentors can spend in schools is limited, a free Saturday morning choir has been launched at the Truro choir school, enabling children from the region's primaries to sing every week. Some, after a while, become cathedral choristers.

The Saturday morning choir, says White, has introduced the idea of being a cathedral chorister to the primary school parents in a non-threatening way. But he is at pains to stress that this is not one large recruiting exercise for the cathedral – it is a project in the community, providing music for pupils who have none and lending support to the non-specialist teachers who will go on providing it for them. Once further funding has been secured, the Saturday morning choir at Truro will expand to provide instrumental lessons for the children as well.

Funding for all the current CSA outreach projects comes from the Department for Education and Science (DfES), with some previously provided by a Youth Music Lottery grant. The CSA receives £50,000 per annum and is in a strong position, but an increase in funding will be essential if the scheme is to continue growing.