THE ADVERTISER, DECEMBER 13, 1996
Harmony ensures success
of choirs’ cathedral project
ELEGANT tiers of burnished steel and pale wood
rose in an airy tower in the
chancel
of
Guildford
Cathedral on Saturday.
When
Guildford
Choral
Society singers filed in and up, to
take their position for the
evening performance of the
Messiah, they were celebrating
the culmination of a 15-month,
£45,000 project involving the
close co-operation of four Surrey
choirs, the Foundation for Sport
and the Arts and the cathedral
administration.
The new. choir
hates
designed by Stage Systems of
Loughborough to specifications
suggested by engineer Stephen
Jepson
of
the
Guildford
Philharmonic Choir, was an
instant success on Saturday.
Light, easily erected, safe and
aesthetically pleasing, the staging
importantly allows the choir to
see and sing out clearly. Visibility
and acoustics are enormously
enhanced in comparison with the
systems used in thepast, and the
new system has the added advantage of flexibility. He choirs. are
delighted.
Choral groups that regularly
use the cathedral for their concerts had been under increasing
pressure from the administration
to sort out acceptable staging
because the older systems are
heavy and could cause potential
damage to the fabric of the building.
Gradually, individual choirs
began looking around for a
replacement, but the cost was
prohibitive. Mr Jepson started
designing his own ideas, and
Carole Leighton from Guildford
Choral Society was impressed.
On the strength of this, she
asked the cathedral to invite all
the choirs in the area to a meeting to discuss a joint venture. Six
choirs turned up, and four stayed
with it: The GCS, the Guildford
Philharmonic, Surrey Festival
Choir and the Epworth Choir, all
completely different organisations.
They formed themselves into
the Association of Surrey Choirs,
pledged £2,500 each and the
cathedral agreed to store and
administer the new staging.
“That was the most wonderful
offer,’ said Mrs Leighton. .
But the cost of the staging was
so steep that even spread across
four choirs, the project was totally dependent on funding from the
Foundation for Sport and the
Arts. This was emphasised when
a trial run with a cheaper system
was a failure and the choirs
decided to opt for a top of the
range model.
It wasn’t until September 1996
that
the
foundation
finally
announced the money was ready,
and after that, things. moved
swiftly. The system was up and
running for its trial concert on
Saturday and after being thoroughly tested by the four contributing choirs, will be available
to other choral societies to hire.
Jane Garrett