The scheme has seen members of the cathedral’s music team go to schools across the district including Woodside Academy, and Idle, Holybrook, Blakehill, Dixons Music, St John’s CE, Stocks Lane, Farfield, Fearnville, Grove House, Fagley, Shipley, Low Moor, Newhall Park, Wycliffe, Trinity All Saints, Priestthorpe and Swain House primary schools.
At each school they ran special inclusive singing workshops with school children in years two and three, told them all about how a cathedral choir works and about opportunities like the Saturday Singers. If the children have keen musical talent, they could earn a Golden Ticket, which is their invitation to Cathedral Sing!, a special singing day to be held at the cathedral this weekend.
Cathedral Sing! follows 2019’s Be A Chorister for the Morning open day which saw the event over-subscribed with local school children keen to learn more.
Graham Thorpe, Assistant Director of Music at Bradford Cathedral:
“Our Golden Ticket scheme has been going extremely well. We’ve visited eighteen schools, listened to around 2000 year two and three pupils, and we’ve handed out about 1000 golden tickets. We’ve already got well over 150 children signed up for Cathedral Sing!
“Cathedral Sing! is an exciting half-day of singing workshops, where the children that have been invited can hear from our cathedral choristers and Saturday Singers, to give them first-hand experience. They get to sing and meet new friends from other schools. Parents are also welcome and we explain how our choirs work and what the commitments are. At the end of the day the children are given the opportunity to join the Saturday Singers.
“The day is always really fun and there is a lot of singing. In its first year more people came to sing than we could fit in the cathedral choir, which was a surprise, and so the Saturdays Singers was born. It’s a fun, community choir for children who love to sing, without the full commitment of being a cathedral chorister.
“Our workshops aren’t exclusive in any way at all. We want to take music to as many primary schools as will have us. Some of the schools we go into have music provision, some haven’t. We take in really accessible call-and-response songs, and we teach them the Kodály method, which uses hand symbols for notes. It’s a really good way of engaging your entire body in the singing, and getting children engaged in what we’re teaching them. We also get the children singing in parts encouraging collaborative learning.
“So far the children and teachers have loved it. The aim is to get plenty of children for Cathedral Sing! and it’s all looking very positive. It’s been great fun. If someone really loves singing then they can get a Golden Ticket, and we really want them to come along to the cathedral so we can help blossom that love of music.”
Cathedral Sing! takes place at Bradford Cathedral on the morning of Saturday 8th February. The music department are always delighted to hear from any children and families who are interested in joining the cathedral’s choirs, and they can be contacted via [email protected] or on 01274 77 77 20.