Chester Cathedral Choir

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Brian Greensill will be remembered fondly by all who encountered him. A Lay Clerk and latterly Lay Succentor in the Cathedral Choir for over twenty years, he was also a talented conductor, founding and directing many local choirs. He was remembered at the funeral last week by the former Director of Music at Chester Cathedral, David Poulter.

“Brian was born in Rugeley, Staffordshire and joined the church choir when he was seven years old. When his father returned from working in Ceylon the family moved to Northwich and Brian attended the Verdin Grammar School where he began to study Piano and Violin.

His working life began at Barclays Bank in Northwich, and he studied for his banking diploma in Manchester. He later went to London as an Inspector for the Bank, and it was there that he became interested in chamber choirs, auditioning for the Louis Halsey Singers.

Brian went on to work in the Education Advisory Service and retired as principal officer. After retirement he worked part time for Hacker Young Chartered Accountants.

As a singer, Brian studied first with Owen Wynne and later with Professor Ellis Keeler. He obtained his ARCM performer’s diploma in London; he sang in oratorio all over the country as a tenor soloist; and he sang with the BBC Northern singers for 21 years. Read the rest of this entry »

The summer term has finished and the cathedral choir are now on holiday.  Visiting choirs will be singing for the services over the summer.

The choir will be back singing regularly from Monday 6th September, 2010.

We would like to thank the parents and choir support group for their help and support over the year. Prints from a number of photos of the choir are now available to purchase directly through photobox. Other photos are on the Flickr Photostream and some sound bites from the past year can be heard on the Facebook Page.

Photo - Will Hay

Congratulations to Head Chorister Emily Burnett and Choral Scholar Edward Reid who have recently attained remarkably high distinctions in their advanced level singing exams. They both toured Belgium recently with their school choir, Abbey Gate College Chapel Choir performing as part of the quartet in Allegri’s Miserere in Bruges.

Emily has been a chorister in the Cathedral Choir for ten years and head chorister for the last four. She will be appearing as soloist with Chester Cathedral Nave Choir in their performance of the Messiah next week. She will be leaving the choir at the end of this term to spend a gap year in Ghana volunteering in a school building programme before taking up further musical study in Cambridge or London.

Edward has been a choral scholar with the Cathedral Choir since January 2009 and recently won the People to People Vocal Award in Chester which operates a musical scholarship exchange with Lakewood in America. He will be leaving for New Zealand at the end of term to take up a post of Choral Scholar at Christchurch Cathedral.