Director of Music

ST BARNABAS EALING

Director of Music JOB PROFILE

St Barnabas is looking to recruit a talented and imaginative Director of Music who has a contagious passion for choral music. The candidate will be energised by working with singers of all abilities and ages.  The Director of Music has overall responsibility for the music department at St Barnabas which includes an assistant organist and four lay clerks. Working closely with this team and the clergy, you will help to organise and promote the music at Sunday services, Holy Days, special services (such as confirmations) as well as  occasional weddings and funerals. This role is for 3 Sundays month and has the potential to grow as the church rebuilds financially after COVID and the choirs expand in numbers. The musical high point is the 4th Sunday of the month on which a full choral eucharist is celebrated with choir, organ and SATB lay clerks.  

 

St Barnabas has a long tradition of high musical standards. There are 3 choirs – an adult choir comprising 10-12 volunteer singers and 4 choral scholars, a junior choir comprising 16 children between the ages of 7 and 14 years old and a community gospel choir (Ealing Gospel Choir) with a core of 26 members.

The Adult Choir

The adult choir is keen to have its repertoire expanded and to work towards performing music that will challenge and grow their abilities. At the Sunday High Mass, besides leading a congregational mass setting (includes St Thomas, Wiltshire and Merbecke), the choir also sings an anthem. On the final Sunday of the month (with 4 lay clerks) the choir sings a choral mass setting and anthem.

The adult choir rehearses on Sunday mornings between 9.30 am and 10.15 am before the start of the mass. Additional rehearsals, generally on a Tuesday evening, are scheduled where needed but particularly before services such as Nine Lessons and Carols and the Jazz Mass. Other fully choral services include Christmas (Nine Lessons and Carols with full brass ensemble, Midnight Mass and Christmas morning), All Souls Requiem Mass, Jazz Mass (Chilcot or other) as part of our annual Jazz on the Lane event and a full round of services in Holy Week and Easter including the Vigil on Holy Saturday.

Traditionally, the new Director of Music has run two “Come and Sing” events annually to help recruit new members and raise funds towards the choir’s budget.

The Junior Choir

At present the Vicar conducts the Junior Choir and Henry Tozer the Gospel Choir. The Junior Choir sings as often as possible with the adults during the High Mass and leads an anthem one Sunday a month. There is a strong desire among the adults and the clergy for the Junior Choir to be more integrated with the adult choir. The junior choristers follow the RSCM medal programme and this is highly valued by them and their parents. The Junior Choir rehearses after the 10.30 am mass for 30 minutes every Sunday.  PCC Funding is available for junior choristers to attend RSCM courses and events.

The Gospel Choir

The Gospel Choir rehearses in the afternoon of the second and third Sundays of the month for two hours. This choir seeks to attract anyone who enjoys community and gospel singing. It has gone from strength to strength and recently performed for the whole of the Ealing Deanery to much appreciation. The Gospel Choir leads the Mass on the first Sunday of the month as well as the music for our very popular Crib Service during Christmas.

ORGAN:

Details of the outstanding and recently rebuilt 3 manual organ is enclosed at the end of the job description. There is also a Bosendorfer concert grand piano in the church.

ASSISTING ORGANIST:

The church benefits enormously in having an outstanding volunteer organist, Dr Hugh Mather FRCO, in the congregation, who is available to play for most Sunday services if required.  Ideally the Director of Music would be an organist as well.

THE CHORAL SCHOLARS:

There are four choral scholars. The choral scholars provide support for each voice group of the adult choir, sing an introit or communion motet at the High Mass once a month, lead the responsorial psalm and sing solos as required by the Director of Music. Before Covid, the lay clerks sang every week, but this has had to be scaled back (temporarily, we hope) to once a month, with a soprano lay clerk singing 3 out of 4 weeks.

ADDITIONAL DUTIES include services with special music, concerts, Cathedral visits.

ADMINISTRATION:

The Director of Music is responsible for publishing an annual programme for the choir detailing all services and special services, monthly music lists, maintaining the music section of the parish website and recruiting new members of the choir together with volunteers from the choir. All music, and especially the hymns, are chosen in close collaboration with the Vicar & Curate to ensure that the music and liturgy are entirely complementary.

RESOURCES AND MUSIC LIBRARY:

The Choir robe in maroon cassocks. St Barnabas uses the New English Hymnal supplemented by contemporary hymnody from New English Praise and other resources. The Music Library, catalogued on Microsoft Excel, contains just under 2000 anthems/motets for use across the liturgical year. There is a budget to be spent on Scholarships, Junior Choir training events and new sheet music.

REMUNERATION:

The Director Music is paid an annual rate of £6000 and is entitled to play for all weddings and funerals. The Director of Music has six Sundays as time-off/holiday each year, the timetabling of which is by agreement with the Vicar. This is in addition to the first Sunday of the month which will be led by the Gospel and Junior choirs.

SAFEGUARDING:

The Director of Music is responsible, with the Parish Safeguarding Officer and Children’s Advocate, for ensuring that Diocesan Safeguarding Policy is being implemented and that relevant members of the Choir and assisting staff have obtained any necessary regulatory checks. The Director of Music position is subject to an Enhanced DBS clearance.

APPLICATIONS:

Please submit a CV with the names of two referees, one of whom should be clergy, by Sunday 11 December to vicar@barnabites.org.

INTERVIEW AND AUDITION PROCESS:

Shortlisted candidates will each be asked to direct the music on a Sunday morning in January 2023. This will include selecting the hymns and anthem with the Vicar, running the Sunday morning rehearsal and leading the music in the High Mass. An interview panel comprising the Vicar, Curate, a churchwarden, a choir member, the organist and a music consultant will then evaluate and appoint.

 

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THE ORGAN:

St Barnabas Church was built 1914-1916. The original intention was to install a large 45-stop, three-manual organ from Henry Willis & Sons, befitting the grandeur of the new church, at a quoted cost of ￡2,950 plus ￡150 for a detached console. Unfortunately, escalating building costs due to the First World War meant the church ran  hort of money and the Willis organ was cancelled. Instead a second-hand ‘temporary’ organ was installed. It was made up from two older organs including a short compass swell by Bryceson Bros, London. This organ was never wholly satisfactory for the size of the church becoming increasingly unreliable, until it was dismantled in 2010.  In 2005 a large three-manual organ became available at St Jude’s Church, Southsea.

Originally made by Gerard Smith as a 2 manual instrument, it was opened in October 1851 by S.S.Wesley and the choir of Winchester Cathedral. It was increased to three manuals in 1869. Damage by fire in 1870 resulted in a major rebuild by Gray and  Davison in 1871. This was not satisfactory and the organ was rebuilt by Hill & Son in 1877. The action was improved over the years, being originally tracker, changed in 1877 to Barker lever and further altered in 1901/1912 to (exhaust) tubular-pneumatic. The organ was removed from St Jude’s Southsea in 2009 and rebuilt and  installed in St Barnabas in 2011 by Nicholson & Co of Malvern, with a new facsimile case placed in front of the Swell organ. A new swell box was built, as the location in St Jude’s had required only the swell shutters. The stop specification and pipes remain exactly in 2011 as Hill left it in 1877.

However, the opportunity was taken to  convert the action to electro-pneumatic, to lower the pitch to A=440 to allow the organ to be used by local orchestras, to add a ‘Gt Reeds on Choir’ coupler and to include modern playing aids and a piston capture system. The organ has 2,606 pipes, 45 ranks of pipes and weighs 12 tons. The organ gallery had to be substantially strengthened to take the increased weight. The end result is one of the finest organs in West London, and one fully worthy to grace the stunning interior of the church. 

The organ project was made possible by a generous bequest made by the late Hazel Baker, who was Organist and Director of Music at St Barnabas for forty years, and  who passed away in 2010. This magnificent instrument is indeed a fitting memorial to a remarkable and much-loved lady. Acknowledgement is also due to John Hudson, Chair of the Organ Committee, for leading the project through many hurdles to a successful conclusion, to Hugh Mather for raising over ￡100,000 towards the cost of the organ, and to the many parishioners of St Barnabas and local residents who gave generous donations. 

This magnificent organ, a thing of great beauty, is our gift to the Glory of God and to the people who will follow us in this place. It is a sign of confidence in our church and in the creative arts and cultural life of our local community. In a world so often full of destruction and despair, we have built a sign of hope in the future, a sign that will resound across the coming years.

ORGAN SPECIFICATION

Compass: manuals 56 notes; pedals 30 notes. 2,606 pipes, 45 stops, weight c12 tons.

Great Organ Swell Organ (enclosed)

1. Double Diapason 16ft 1851 16. Bourdon 16ft 1851

2. Open Diapason No.1 8 1877 17. Open Diapason 8 1851

3. Open Diapason No.2 8 1851 18. Stopped Diapason 8 1851

4. Stopped Diapason 8 1851 19. Keraulophon 8 1851

5. Claribel 8 1877 20. Salicional 8 1877

6. Gamba 8 1872 21. Vox Angelica (Tenor C) 8 1877

7. Principal 4 1851 22. Principal 4 1851

8. Harmonic Flute 4 1851 23. Fifteenth 2 1851

9. Twelfth 2⅔ 1872 24. Piccolo 2 1877

10. Fifteenth 2 1851 25. Mixture III 1851, 15.19.22

11. Mixture III 1851, 15.19.22 26. Double Trumpet 16 1877

12. Mixture II 1877, 26.29 27. Cornopean 8 1851

13. Posaune 8 1877 28. Oboe 8 1851

14. Trumpet 8 1851 29. Vox Humana 8 1877

15. Clarion 4 1851 30. Clarion 4 1851

Tremulant

Choir Pedal

31. Lieblich Bourdon 16ft 1877 39. Open Diapason 16ft 1851

32. Lieblich Gedackt 8 1872 40.Violone 16 1877

33. Dulciana 8 1872 41. Bourdon 16 1851

34. Gamba 8 1851 42. Quint 12 [sic] 1877

35. Gemshorn 4 1872 43. Principal 8 1851

36. Suabe Flute 4 1872 44. Bass Flute 8 1877

37. Flageolet 2 1851 45. Trombone 16 1851

38. Clarinet 8 1877

Couplers:

Swell to Pedal

Swell to Great

Swell to Choir

Swell octave

Swell suboctave

Choir to Pedal

Swell to Pedal

Great to Pedal

Great Reed on Choir (2011)