We work constantly on chorister, layclerk and organ scholar recruitment, welfare and training, funding, publicity, planning and promotion of recordings, broadcasts, concerts and tours. Child protection and health & safety issues are part of it, especially when we take the Cathedral Choir abroad or the boy or girl choristers out for a treat such as a visit to London, or to a museum, or ‘bowling & burgers’. And then, every few years, there is the extra excitement of something unique such as our chorister Ben Inman being selected by Universal for The Choirboys—whose first CD reached ‘platinum’ sales at the end of 2007, or the world premiere of our now widely-performed commission—Paul Patterson’s Southwell Millennium Mass.

Maintaining our organs and pianos in perfect condition is important, as is daily work in our vast choir library of some 20,000 copies. Type-setting music, designing and checking special orders of service and concert programmes are all part of the daily work for the three organists here—Simon Bell (Assistant Organist), the organ scholar (gap-year or post-graduate) and me. Liaison with the Minster School in its spectacular new £37 million home is another aspect of our richly varied day.

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