Sacred Sound & the Royal School of Church Music

Last week, I wrote an article about the Royal School of Church Music and our parish’s relationship with the annual Carolina Course. While my involvement started in 2015, our parish has been connected with the Royal School of Church Music since the 1980s. Alan Reed, Emmanuel’s choirmaster & organist from 1986-1996 developed separate boys’ and girls’ choirs during his tenure and was sponsor of a three choirs festival. Our next organist/choirmaster, Johnny Bradburn, 1996-2010, continued our parish involvement with the RSCM until he neared retirement.

At the start of my tenure, it was time to reenergize the children’s and youth choral programming. It began with the establishment of the St. Cecilia Choir, and I was fortunate to have the support of the Cheek, Kelley, Lusa, Johnson, Ix, Trevarrow, Collins, Botnick, and Compton families. With their trust, we began to build a children’s program, pedagogically modeled on the Royal School of Church Music system, albeit with very young singers.

After a few years of building, we had singers that were prepared to attend one of the RSCM-A summer course offerings. In the summer of 2015, with the assistance of The Emmanuel Thrift Shop and an anonymous donor, the parish sponsored choristers Madison Kelley and Christina Berry to attend the course at St. Mary’s School in Raleigh. For me, it was the beginning of a new musical adventure. For the parish, it was the restoration of an important ministry.

Our parish involvement with the Royal School of Church Music is largely due to the championing of it by several key people. In addition to the good work of Alan Reed and Johnny Bradburn, it was the encouragement of Tucky Thompson, Marilyn Neely, and Charlotte Lammers, all of whom had had children involved in the program at one time, that directed our children’s choir ministry towards the Royal School of Church Music model. My sabbatical in 2017, during which time the parish sponsored my attendance of the Association of Anglican Musicians Conference in Winchester, England, brought further inspiration towards the formation of a traditional chorister program.

Except for the 2020 and 2021 pandemic years, our parish has been sending choristers to summer courses across the country ever since. Prior to the establishment of the Drake Fund, it was the support of The Emmanuel Thrift Shop that made these life changing experiences possible. Their support, guided by Joan Owen, is something that I will always remember and forever be thankful.

To gain a better understanding of these courses, I wanted to share with you a film that has just now been made available publicly, and at no cost. In 2013, filmmaker Robin Arcus spent the week with the 2013 Royal School of Church Music in America Carolina Course at St. Mary’s, Raleigh. David Hill was the music director that year. From that, an extraordinary 65-minute documentary film titled Sacred Sound was created. The film follows 50 girls, and the accompanying adults who sing alto, tenor and bass, as they learn and sing music in the manner of the great cathedral choirs.

Sacred Sound was screened at Emmanuel in August of 2015, prior to the film’s public release. Until now, it was only available through the purchase of the film. I invite you now to view this incredible film, available on YouTube at this link: https://youtu.be/McB_aj1oDSM?si=u-DAeQtmE05t6kv5

As publicity for the film at the time noted, “Relish beauty in sight and sound of remarkable young people who willingly rise at dawn to march through morning mist to sit on hard pews for the sake of offering themselves to God through music. These young people take to heart the words of the liturgy as not mere words, but the means by which humans relate to heaven, bringing the music to life through the very breath of their being.”

Supplemental interviews to the film are available here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbQ2ytnTsZrE3aIV7_xBNTlNJZOLZeNit