Be a Chorister at Candlemas! 2nd February 2014     Building on the success of last year, enquiries were flocking in to All Saints before the annual Be a Chorister day had even been advertised! Come the day – Sunday 2 February (Candlemas) - the children arrived and registered, all looking reticent and slightly nervous, before being swiftly whisked off to the first singing session. Parents departed and soon the song room was echoing with giggles and song as the children left all traces of nerves behind them and threw themselves into songs and singing games. In what seemed like an instant, the children were back in the tea room for refuelling in the form of squash, cakes, biscuits and flapjacks before returning for a second singing session. The next break involved painting of the t-shirts. The children enjoyed proving they could certainly take the fashion world by storm! Once they had completed their t-shirts they were guided by current chorister parent chaperones in party game fun! The children played in teams, a spirit of friendly competitiveness developing, as they learned skills essential to life as a chorister – the virtues of hard work, enthusiasm, thoughtfulness and team work, as together they helped even the youngest chorister to succeed as a team. A third singing session was spent rehearsing the anthem ‘Make me a light’ for Evensong. A short concert to their parents of the fun songs learned first of all followed, before the potential choristers took their seats in the front pews and the church descended into darkness for Evensong. Suddenly, singing broke out in the gallery, the sound bouncing across from one choir to the other in the antiphonal anthem by Charles Wood, Hail, Gladdening Light. There was a stunned stillness from the congregation as the final chords died away, before the choir processed up into the choir stalls and Evensong began. The canticles were sung to the much-loved setting written by Herbert Howells (a pupil of Charles Wood) for King’s College, Cambridge, Collegium Regale, and the responses were by David Willcocks, director of that famous choir from 1957 to 1974. Finally, the Be-a-Choristers joined the current choristers on the chancel steps, each holding a candle, to sing together Make Me a Light by Philip Wilby. The Be-a-Choristers were then presented with certificates before going home happy and tired. Rumour has it that Benjamin Britten’s catchy song Old Abram Brown was still to be heard echoing around several Northamptonshire homes at bedtime that night! The order of service for Candlemass can be downloaded here.