Contact:
Stephen Bick
Email:
bickstephen@gmail.com
Address:
St Elizabeth of Portugal,
The Vineyard,
Locality:
Richmond
Postcode/Zip:
TW106AQ
Musical Requirements:
St Elizabeth of Portugal is looking for Assistant DoM to accompany our flourishing choir and help it grow.
Dates:
Deadline for CVs/applications: Sunday 29th June
Auditions: one of the following Sundays: 29th June, 6th July, 13th July, 20th July
The Choir:
St Elizabeth’s choir is a mixed amateur/professional group of around 10-15 singers. We are ambitious, inclusive and social, and sing the best Catholic music of the last thousand years for the glory of God and to help the people in the parish. The musical standard is high, but we only do one rehearsal a week, for an hour before Sunday Mass. We sing one or two motets per week, a new mass setting every month or so, and a mixture of chant propers and hymns. To listen to some live recordings from Holy Week, click here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jlCqQqq17DLF3f46CfbPK4M0O3OxRCRA?usp=drive_link
Choral Scholarships:
We run a training scheme every year for four student/young professional choral scholars, who sing with the choir each week and receive conductor training, with the goal that they could run choirs in parishes after finishing the year. This also means that every part in the choir has at least one professional to bump it at all times, and that we can do consort music whenever we like.
The Instrument:
A 3-manual 1993 Copeman & Hart. We recently restored all the speakers and moved them into the choir loft next to the console.
Duties:
Accompany choir during rehearsal Sunday 10, and during 11 Mass, including chant, hymns, motets, Mass settings. £75 fee.
Accompany choir for special services (Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Maundy Thursday, Easter Vigil): £100 fee.
First refusal on extra services (weddings, funerals, internal concerts etc.), £150 fee.
Assist with some of the following, agreed at beginning of post, based on your interest and ability: concert series artistic direction, concert series marketing and promotion, conductor training, typesetting, editing and arranging, video/audio recording projects, choir web presence.
Essential qualities:
First rate liturgical accompanist across varied repertoire: stonking hymns, obscure chant, continuo realisation, new commissions, French Romantic Masses, fantastic voluntaries.
Helpful rehearsal pianist, including score reading in 4+ parts (modern clefs).
Able and sensitive liturgical improviser.
Knowledge and love of the repertoire.
Good and timely communicator.
Easy to work with.
Sympathy and respect for liturgy.
Desirable qualities:
A recognised organ qualification (e.g. the ARCO)
Good singer, able to step in when needed
Choir training/conducting experience
Practicing Catholic
Audition/interview process:
Please send a CV by email. Selected candidates will be invited to come in on a Sunday morning and play during the end of a service, doing the following:
1) improvising around a communion chant while the choir receives communion
2) accompanying the choir while they sing the same chant
3) accompanying the choir for a medium-difficulty motet scored for choir and organ
4) accompanying a rousing final hymn
5) playing an impressive voluntary.
After the service, we’ll do some brief sight-reading/score reading tests and an informal interview.
Other details:
Feel free to get in touch informally before applying.