Partnership programme

Hereford Cathedral School has a massive music programme with lots of strands including large scale choral and orchestral concerts for the County, with funding from the Hub; Easter and Summer residential and non-residential children’s holiday courses; Saturday morning music school for young singers and instrumentalists; Music in Quiet Places series of chamber concerts in collaboration with Historic Churches Trust.

David Evans, Director of Music, is a member of the main Hub, working closely with Herefordshire Music Service and other local partner organisations. He also serves on the Singing Strategy  and  Large Scale concerts sub hubs, running the latter for the County.

David writes: “After a fairly slow start in the Autumn  we ended up with 17 choirs of 15 students each but in order to encourage those not so confident we started to work with  choirs of up to 30. I was able to get into a small number of primary schools in November and produced a remote  carol service involving a small number of Herefordshire and Shropshire Schools, led and programmed from Hereford Cathedral School. There was genuine gratitude from children, families and teachers that somebody was doing something to get the children singing, and it had huge effects on their well-being.”

David is looking forward to getting back to ‘normal’ – running a programme that embraces so much and for so many!

Singing

• Words and Music for Remembrance involves around 300 children and brings together choirs and children from many local schools who perform together with our choirs.
• Joint Schools’ Advent Service involved in excess of 600 children from local schools singing alongside our choirs and separately. The massed choirs perform such works as a joint ‘Hallelujah’ chorus arr, popular carols and hymns for such an occasion.
• An outreach Choral and Orchestral Concert in March involving around 400 children. Usually a work such as Faure requiem (2019) with parts arr. for children, or The Armed Man, Haydn – Nelson Mass, Vivaldi – Gloria, Mozart – Requiem, and in March 2020 – Cantata Memoria  – Karl Jenkins.

Instrumental Music

There are two Music Courses each year. The Easter Course is based in Malvern and is Residential, the Summer Course runs  at the Cathedral School during the holidays. Between both courses around 170 children come along from Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire.

Community

A Saturday Morning Music School attracts around 100 people each week. As part of this  6 instrumental staff teach from 8.30 through to lunchtime, an adult choir specialises in sight-reading, and the Herefordshire Junior Youth Choir (which we started three years ago as there was no youth choir provision within the county).

Ongoing – Hereford Cathedral School is now central to the maintenance of the Herefordshire Festival since recent news of it’s demise after 85 years. HCS along with two local partnerships have offered to run this competitive festival catering for 1200 children annually.

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