One of the advantages of having a city-centre office, is that I can be out of the door at 5.00pm and along the road to Christ Church in time to sing evensong.
I was in this evening depping for one of the Tenor lay vicars. I seem to have been in quite a lot recently – a total of 8 times since the start of the academic year.
I think I benefit from there being a relatively small gene-pool of tenors available to dep. And I also benefit from having my face seen on a regular basis. I firmly believe that if I’m singing in the cathedral on a fairly regular basis then I’ll get asked to do more – but once I’m out of sight, I’m also out of mind.
So for now I’m getting booked a fair bit, and I’m delighted to help.
It’s been 10 years since I hung up my cassock after being a Lay Vicar Choral for 8 years. At the time I was exhausted (because of an as-yet undiagnosed illness) and didn’t relish the commitment of singing 5 times a week. So I was happy to step away and take a break from singing.
Of course, the love of church music eventually pulled me back in, and I now have the lesser commitment of singing every Sunday morning in the parish church of St Ann’s Dawson Street.
But I still love the challenge that comes from singing at a high standard in cathedral choir, as well as exercising my sight-reading muscles when I encounter a new piece. And it’s nice, as dep, to be able to control my own schedule.
Of course, there’s also the down-side of not being able to sing in any service unless I’m asked. Coming up in the next few weeks is Advent Sunday, and in Christ Church one of my favourite services of the whole year, the Advent Procession. I’ve depped at it a couple of times in recent years, and would love to do it this year. But I have to wait until I’m asked.