Awards Boost for Cathedral Music

The development and expansion of our musical ministry continues.

Eighteen of our cathedrals have benefitted, from Carlisle in the north to Truro in the south, with a variety of awards to support the development and expansion of our musical ministry.

Our musical heritage and our musical future has been given a much-needed boost after the Cathedral Music Trust invested £500,000 in cathedral music for 2024.

Jonathan MacDonald, Chair of the Cathedral Music Trust, said:

“This investment of £500,000 represents the largest annual sum Cathedral Music Trust has ever distributed through its regular financial support programmes.

“Our cathedrals and parish churches continue to face financial challenges in sustaining the nation’s wonderful heritage of choral and organ music, and this support signals the Trust’s ongoing commitment to securing a bright future for this cherished tradition.”

Blackburn, Coventry, Derby, Exeter, Newcastle, Peterborough, Rochester, Ripon and Truro all got the highest awards of between £28,000 and £30,000 each to support new posts, salaries, or in Derby’s case, to develop a new keyboard programme to grow the next generation of organists.

Hereford Cathedral was awarded £20,500 to support its choral and organ scholarship programme, Lincoln £20,00 for a musical outreach role, Worcester £20,000 to support singing tuition and a chaperone for its choristers, and Bradford Cathedral was awarded £15,000 for a team of professional lay clerks.

The Revd Pete Gunstone, Minor Canon for Worship and Nurture at Bradford Cathedral, said:

“We are very grateful to the Cathedral Music Trust for the financial support they have given us to enable the provision of three new professional Section Lead & Lay Clerk roles. These singers will play an important role in supporting our voluntary cathedral choir and the development of its members.”

Other winners include Liverpool Cathedral which received £15,000 to support the expansion of the Schools Singing Programme and Junior Choirs in new areas of the diocese, Carlisle Cathedral was granted £12,000 to support singing lessons for the Cathedral’s choristers as part of their new Harmony Under the Stars project, Winchester was awarded £9,000 to support the director of the Junior Choir, Guildford Cathedral was granted £6,600 to support an Evensong project in schools and colleges, and Salisbury gets £5,500 to support their youth and junior choirs.

Mark Duthie, Director of Music at Carlisle Cathedral, said,

“We are delighted to have received this grant for our chorister training programme. Singing lessons are a key part of the development of our choristers as musicians and singers. This funding will support our Harmony Under the Stars project to provide a solid musical education for all our choristers now and into the future.”

“Music is central to everything we do here at Carlisle Cathedral, providing a broad offer of musical activity to young people in Carlisle and Cumbria with our chorister-ships, Consort choir, Cantate children’s community choir and schools outreach programme. It is free to visit the Cathedral and to listen to one of our choirs during the services, and we don’t charge to be part of the Cathedral Choirs, which shows just how vital this funding is,’ he added.

Cathedrals from our partners, the Church in Wales, were also celebrating today after becoming successful recipients of the Cathedral Music Trust awards. St Deiniol’s Cathedral, Bangor was awarded £29,500 to support an increase in working hours for its lay clerks, and St Davids was granted £15,000 to support the role of Choir Chaperone and to provide travel bursaries for choristers.

You can find out more on the Cathedral Music Trust website.