The Cathedral Music Fund
Promoting a 500-year tradition of musical excellence

We are grateful to our friends and supporters who help keep the 500-year old tradition of musical excellence at Christ Church alive. 

Since the Music Fund’s establishment in 2013, one of its major aims has been to give children from all walks of life the opportunity to be a chorister, and we have successfully endowed 31 Cathedral Choristerships.

Gifts to the Christ Church Cathedral Music Fund have ensured that a 500-year old tradition of musical excellence at Christ Church continues to thrive.

Christ Church Cathedral Choir has a long and distinguished history, particularly known for its association with John Taverner, who was appointed its first organist and master of the Choristers by Cardinal Wolsey in 1526.  The Cathedral Choir repertoire ranges from Renaissance polyphony to new commissions, embracing European baroque and Romantic, English Victorian, and contemporary music. In recent years, music has been commissioned from Errollyn Wallen CBE, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Piers Connor Kennedy and Ghislaine Rees-Trapp. 

One of the major aims of the Christ Church Cathedral Music Fund has been to give children from all walks of life the opportunity to become choristers at Christ Church Cathedral through the provision of scholarships and other support. The boy choristers are educated at Christ Church Cathedral School. Frideswide Voices, established in 2014, offers opportunities for girls, aged between 7 and 14 from schools across Oxfordshire, to be part of the choral foundation at Christ Church, and offers music lessons and the chance to tour.  

In addition to support of the Choir itself, our current priority is a new pipe organ to stand at the East End/Crossing of the Cathedral. This romantic-style instrument is needed to better provide choral accompaniment and facilitate the playing of organ music of the mid-nineteenth century and later. It would complement our Rieger Organ, which is particularly distinguished in the performance of earlier repertoire. Now that the Cathedral’s Choirs have made permanent their move to the Chancel of the Cathedral, rather than the Nave, there is an urgent need for the new organ to be in close proximity to their new location. As the College reaches its 500th anniversary, it is a timely moment to examine aspects of our musical provision, and we look forward to working with our friends and supporters to realise this vital project.