Portsmouth Cathedral welcomes funding boost from the Cathedral Music Trust
Nearly £450,000 has been distributed nationally to enable choirs to expand their work with musicians and young people.
Thanks to the generosity of many friends and patrons of the CMT, this year we’ve been able to support cathedral music-making in all its forms – from school engagement and chorister development programmes to paid adult positions – all essential to a thriving tradition.
Almost £450,000 has been awarded in grants by the CMT, assisting 26 choral foundations, supporting 50 professional posts, enriching over 250 weekly choral services, impacting more than 1,000 young choristers and many more thousands of young people through community work.
Highlights of this year’s grants include helping rebuild Sheffield Cathedral's music department (£30,000 over two years), investing in school engagement programmes in Newcastle (£21,500) and Bradford (£15,000) and enabling Welsh cathedrals to establish new lay clerk positions – in Bangor and St Asaph (£15,000 each). We are also supporting Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (£25,000) in developing a new choral/organ studentship pathway for former choristers.
Dean of Portsmouth, The Very Revd Dr Anthony Cane said ‘We are extremely grateful to the Trust for its continued support of choral music at Portsmouth Cathedral, this time in supporting the excellent work of the sub-organist and choir matrons. Enabling our choristers to flourish as individuals, and to make wonderful music together, is a complex business involving an extended team of people. For all the challenges involved, not least financially, we are determined to enable this glorious tradition of music making to flourish, and the grant from the Cathedral Music Trust is incredibly helpful in so doing.”
It would simply not have been possible to make these transformational grants without the generosity of Cathedral Music Trust’s supporters who, like us, believe in the power of cathedral music to change lives.
The Trust is indebted to the Friends of Cathedral Music and the Diamond Fund for Choristers who laid the foundations for this vital work. We are proud to be continuing their legacy by enriching the present and securing the future of this great tradition.
Following the publication of the ground-breaking report into the Future for Cathedral Music in September 2022, we have undertaken extensive research to identify gaps in provision for cathedral musicians of all ages. In response, we are in the process of developing a number of educational initiatives aimed at opening up pathways into choristerships for young people of all backgrounds, and supporting the development of early career conductors, singers and organists across the country – inspiring the next generation.
We will be announcing recipients of the Church Choir Award 2023, in partnership with the RSCM, in the coming months. The purpose of the award is to recognise and develop excellence in music-making by church choirs through the funding of imaginative new projects and activities.