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A Royal Visit for Sing!

Sheffield Cathedral is preparing to meet Her Majesty the Queen on the morning of Thursday 18 November as she comes to see the work of the Sing! Project and to meet staff and volunteers at the Cathedral Archer Project.

For three years Sheffield Cathedral has been involved in a national chorister outreach programme, run under the auspices of the Choir Schools Association. Our local contribution to this programme is called Sing!

The Cathedral works in thirteen primary schools in Sheffield, many of which are in areas of considerable challenge and few of which have the resources to offer much in the way of musical provision in the curriculum.

The project is ably and enthusiastically led by Nick Cox, who is also one of the Cathedral's Songmen, working with the Cathedral's Director and Assistant Director of Music, Neil Taylor and Anthony Gowing.

The highlight of the programme is a termly concert in the Cathedral, involving up to four partner schools in a lively themed programme of singing. There are also regular outreach visits involving boy and girl choristers from the Cathedral choirs singing in our partner schools.

Nick Cox said of the Sing! Project’s work, “I’ve been working in schools for over three years now, and I’ve never seen this level of excitement in children before. I think that it’s a mixture of enjoying the challenging yet accessible repertoire, and knowing that they’ll be coming together with children from over ten other schools across the city to put on an amazing performance for the Queen. The experience is something truly unique for them all and it really seems to have struck a chord.”

The Very Revd Peter Bradley, Dean of Sheffield, said, “Sing! is an important part of Sheffield Cathedral’s musical outreach and we are proud to see staff and students’ wonderful work recognized by Her Majesty's visit. We pray that we will be able to find the funding for this valuable outreach to continue.”

Funding was initially provided from central government, but when that finished at the end of the 2009/10 academic year a further year's funding was secured from the Sheffield Church Burgesses Educational Foundation along with a generous grant from the D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust. We are currently seeking sponsorship for this valuable work to continue beyond 2011.