St. Mark's choir visits Lichfield Cathedral, August 2025

Doris Burton, Lichfield Link representative and choir member

Background

Lichfield and the first choir visit

The Link is the result of a friendship which developed between Rev. Jim Adams (Rector, 1965-1996) and Rev. Tony Barnard. The 1996 choir visit came after a newly-revived choir, under the direction of Dr. Keith S. Reas, was still in its fledgling phase: the previous Director of Music/organist, Saunders Allen, had done very little to enhance the music program and the 9am choir was more of a folk group than a traditional Episcopal choir (It is worth noting that the Link was one of the things that attracted Keith to St. Mark’s).

Keith had a great deal of work to do to prepare us for that visit. Additionally, the choir spent nearly 2 years raising the necessary $20,000 we calculated needed to cover part of the expenses (gifts to host families, the tour cost for Keith, the organist, and Ken Lee who was, at the time the Link Rep; and a weekend retreat at Cacapon State Park for the choir; a workshop with Tim Brown, director of Kings College, Cambridge; choir a gift to the cathedral, and a dinner for our hosts, cathedral staff, and the Lichfield choir).

To give you a perspective on what proved to be so challenging: when the ’96 choir asked the Vestry for permission to request donations for the tour at an up-coming concert, one vestry member responded, “Who would pay money to hear this choir?” Needless to say, we prepared as best we could: sang two evensong services alone and two with the Lichfield Choir of Men and Boys along with several other venues (churches known to several members of St. Mark’s).

Singing at Lichfield has its challenges

Singing at Lichfield is not as easy as one might think: the organ console is located about 20’ above the Quire making getting pitches more challenging than at St. Mark’s and, the organ is tuned ½ step higher than is common (not terrible for basses and altos but can be a challenge for the tenors and sopranos). Nonetheless, we sang (not always at our best!) and the Link survived.

I admit to being somewhat nervous about being in residence for a week: we were to sing Evensong 6 times and the Sunday morning service as well. This called for an enormous amount of music for the choir and Jeff wisely contacted several other singers, mostly men (and an organist—common practice—who is the organist at St. John’s+Lafayette Square.) This gave us about 40 singers. Another seven family/friends/non-singers joined the tour.

2025 Tour

First stop

Our first stop was in St. Alban’s, a market town about 30 minutes north of London. While we’d originally been scheduled to sing at St. Alban’s Cathedral, that venue proved unavailable so, instead, sang Sunday morning and Sunday Evensong at St. Peter’s, a lovely parish church comparable in size to St. Mark’s. Most members had arrived in the UK on Friday, Aug 1, toured Windsor Castle then traveled by coach to St. Alban’s. Saturday was a ‘recovery’ day so we had time to experience a marvelous street market and take a tour (and to rest and get more sleep) but also included a rehearsal, the first with all singers. This proved a positive move and I believe most of us felt good about the result. That night, we had a ‘welcome’ dinner before traveling to Lichfield on Monday.

Schedule

Our week there held a fairly rigorous schedule: rehearsal at 8:30 am, then an outing lasting until about 2pm; another rehearsal before singing Evensong then to dinner (on our own). We met the Canon Presentor, Rev. Andrew Stead, who guided us thru the procedures (more formal than ours) and generously invited the choir to his home on Friday, after the Evensong, for a glass of wine. (One member of the choir reported that the prayer offered before we processed into the Quire, was familiar but, rather, our choir’s ‘goodnight’ song, sung at the end of rehearsals. Someone offered to sing it for the Canon and his wife and the choir produced a lovely end to the evening.)

Surprises

It was surprising to discover that the residential children’s choir school is no more. The cost to both families and church has grown so much that the children singing in their choir are now local; girls are a significant part and the men number only about 6. The other surprise was the discovery that the house the Barnards resided in during their tenure is now used by the school with a portion of their living room now the choir room (quite small for as large a choir as we were).

Reconnecting

I reconnected with Nigel Argust, Assistant Organist, who was part of the Lichfield choir visit in ’02, and with Chris Craddock, Head Verger, whom we met in ’96 and worked with David Deutsch. I think it worth noting that the ’96 tour was our first experience with vergers and parishioner/choir member, Art Engler was so taken with the positive impact of their role that, upon returning home, founded our own verger corps.

We also met The Rt Rev. Jan McFarlane, their first female dean and one of the first women ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican church (1994). I later learned she has a friend who attends St. Columba’s and has been to Washington several times.

Outings

Outings that week included a tour of Lichfield Cathedral and the city, a visit to the Black Country Museum (a re-creation of life in the Midlands when industrial production and coal mining contributed to significant air pollution), Coventry Cathedral (the original suffered significant damage in World War II but the walls were left standing as a memorial and a new, modern Cathedral was constructed adjacent to the old). Thursday was a full day off so many traveled to Stratford to see the home/church/village of Shakespeare and some attended a production, and, finally, Kenilworth Castle.

Having visited Stratford several times, I was invited to lunch with the Empsalls (my counterparts), and the Barnards. Tony and Anne have retired to a lovely home in Barton-Under-Needwood with a fabulous garden they both maintain (Anne proudly showed me the new ‘King Charles’ rose) and the weather was with us for lunch outside. Jack and I stayed with the Barnards on the ’96 tour and I visit whenever.

Pat and Brian have become dear friends and keep me posted on the events in Lichfield and with current politics. They attended all but one of our Evensongs and, with the Barnards were in the Cathedral for Sunday morning.

One very impressive sight at the Cathedral is the Jubilee Table, on display until May, ’26. 13 meters long and made from 5000-year old black oak uncovered in the east of the UK, it is an extraordinary piece of woodwork (there is a photo in the foyer of the choir not-quite-surrounding the table.) And, as a footnote: the cathedral needleworkers are gathering squares of all kinds to create a table-runner. I have ‘our square’ and will recruit folks to produce our contribution.

Our gift to Lichfield

As is our custom, we presented a gift of the hand-drawn Gareth Fuller map of Washington, DC., at the Sunday morning Eucharist (if you have not already seen it, a copy can be viewed on Sunday then, by agreement with the artist, will be destroyed).

Possible next steps

I have sent thank you notes to both Dean Jan and Canon Andrew and extended an unofficial invitation for them to visit St. Mark’s. I spoke with Canon Andrew about the possibility of their choir coming to us and learned very disappointing news: because of incidents of child sexual abuse in the Anglican church (including the decision by the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign), travel involving children is very carefully monitored. Home stays, long a benefit to both visitor and host, are now forbidden. It will take some thought and discussion how the link relationship can change to accommodate this shift.

It is my understanding that our ‘performances’ were well received and that we earned particular note for our psalm chanting (this is a part of every Evensong and required a great deal of work by the choir as we had a different psalm to learn for each Evensong). I believe St. Mark’s made an excellent showing at Lichfield and was proud to be a part of the choir once again. There was also enough enthusiasm among the singers for a return (though shorter) visit to Lichfield in the near future along with some new venues.

A tour committee of seven assisted Jeff with some decisions (including managing the sale of the Christmas ornaments) and also reviewed a post-tour evaluation by tour members. There were changes suggested but the overall response was very positive and I believe St. Mark’s should be very pleased at the outcome. Our only disappointment was that few services are live-streamed (Sunday, 3 services can be viewed on their YouTube channel.) so you were not able to hear us in action!

There is a tentative plan for the choir to make a presentation to the congregation during a coffee hour and lunch in October when we can show photos and respond to questions. I am also pleased to report that one of the younger choir members has expressed an interest in participating more fully in the link and hope to report on this development after she and I meet.

I urge you to go to the Lichfield Cathedral website to see all that is offered, not just music but historical items (see Lichfield brochure) and the numerous events scheduled.