Lindsay Gray, the director of the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) visited Grahamstown during his tour of the South African RSCM branches last week.
Gray gave a presentation about the school and his work to a small gathering at the Cathedral of St Michael and St George on Tuesday.
Lindsay Gray, the director of the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) visited Grahamstown during his tour of the South African RSCM branches last week.
Gray gave a presentation about the school and his work to a small gathering at the Cathedral of St Michael and St George on Tuesday.
He will be visiting Johannesburg, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein and Cape Town on his tour of South Africa.
Gray started the presentation with one of his favourite quotes, “Music is a spiritual gift that gives people access to other worlds beyond the material and mundane.”
RSCM actively does this through its promotion of people’s participation in church music. The aim of the organisation is to continue the tradition of choral music by developing church music worldwide in cathedrals, churches, chapels and schools.
Grahamstown’s efforts to preserve the church music tradition were shown by the emanating voices of the Young Cathedral Choristers, a choir made up of learners from Victoria Girls’ Primary and High and Graeme College who sang three songs before the presentation.
They are the new young co-opts for the Cathedral. Their eagerness and the beauty of their singing generated a springboard for the audience’s interest in the school.RSCM is an international organisation that was started in Britain in 1927 and is now run in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, US and Canada.
There are plans to set up branches in more countries such as Zimbabwe and Nigeria. RSCM has its central staff in Salisbury which are assisted by regional co-ordinators and over 700 volunteers and has a network of 9 000 churches, schools, choirs and individuals.
It is a leading music educator for choirs and individuals and offers practical training courses to develop skills in church and sacred music and choral singing.
RCSM also aims to develop more clergy singers and to teach more people to play church instruments such as the organ which very few people learn how to play.
RSCM choirs have become what Gray calls flagship choirs. Gray is a respected musician and educator and his achievements have been lauded by British musicians and clergy.
His work with RSCM started after years of teaching and creating choirs in various parts of England. He started a girls choir in Cardiff in which the renowned singer, Charlotte Church sang before she was offered a recording contract.
Since his work began with RSCM he has been associated with building up the organisation. As director, he maintains the music side such as conducting, playing and singing but he also manages the organisation’s staff and ensures the education training in the programme stays up to date.
Gray said that the priorities for RSCM are to recruit and retain more members through informing people about the organisation and to look for people to become involved.
He said, “At RSCM, we embrace both the modern and the ancient so we encourage all people to join from the Anglican Church and other dominations as well as musicians from established organisations individuals as we believe it is just as important to help little groups as it is to help the bigger ones.”
Gray said that RSCM links church choirs together so that they form networks. RSCM also encourages the youth to get involved.
The chairman of the South African branch of RSCM based in Johannesburg, Kevin Williams, explained how the staff of RSCM have a passion for church music which binds them to RSCM.
He said that South Africa is able to ensure that the education training is consistent with that of the UK through communicating with computer technology.
He said that we need to form alliances as “we don’t want to work as silos in our own empire, our strength is in our unity”.
He said that we need to develop African music and publicise it worldwide as many people have a passion for African music such as using marimbas instead of organs.
He reiterated Gray’s words, saying that it is important to expose church music and show that it is open to all people, not just elitist groups or English church music.
However, as with most organisations, it is useful to have supporters. The Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury are patrons of this church music organisation with Bishop Desmond Tutu fulfilling this role in South Africa.
