'What a joy it was for me to be part of the 500th anniversary “singalong” in the Cathedral on Saturday 19 September. I was delighted to be invited by the Organist Peter Holder to represent the academic side of music at Christ Church; indeed, it was a privilege to be joining in the singing, and to have had the opportunity to meet so many people with both recent and long-standing associations with our choirs. It was also a pleasure to have the chance to catch up with many former undergraduate and graduate Music students.

I was singing next to two brothers who had been choristers in the Cathedral Choir under Thomas Armstrong in the late 1940s. Quite a family: they had another brother, sadly no longer with us, who had also sung in the Choir. They both readily admitted that their eyesight and hearing may not have been quite what it was seventy years ago, but they were nonetheless able to contribute enthusiastically. Voices may fade over the years, but the training the Cathedral Choir had given to so many present was clearly in evidence: they still had the muscle memory, they knew how to enter bang in time, they still knew how to hit all the notes cleanly! For all of us to be surrounding the present Cathedral Choir and Frideswide Voices was a fitting quincentennial coming together of past and present generations. And, on a personal note, it only struck me in the midst of it all, that this was in fact my last formal event as a full-time employee of Christ Church. I couldn’t have planned a more appropriate way to bow out of a rich and fulfilling musical life in the place.'

Jonathan Cross