A Day in the Life: A chorister at St Mary's Music School

Choristers rehearse at St Mary's Cathedral. Picture: Jon Savage.

I joined St Mary’s Music School in P5, which is when you can start at the school. Now I’m in S1. When you’re in S2 you get to be a senior chorister and you get a medal for being there, and you get to carry the cross in some services. Then you stop being a chorister at the end of S2.

My normal day would be an hour of each school subject I have that day, and I also get half an hour to practise singing on my own each day. As seniors we’re seperate from the primaries, and your timetable is individual to each person. We have practice rooms all over the school, and almost all of the practice rooms have a piano so you can tune and stuff.

Every day in the morning we go to song school. We start quite early, before 8.30am. Then after warming up we sing for an hour on the music we’re going to perform later that day. At the end of the day before school finishes at 4.30pm everyone goes down together to choir tea. It’s different each day, just a snack to get us going before we go to St Mary’s Cathedral for the rehearsal for choristers.

Olivia Massimo rehearsing with other choristers. Picture: Jon Savage.

We have rehearsals every day apart from Saturday. And Wednesday we don’t have the service in the evening, just the one in the morning so we end the day early. On Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday we have Evensong, and on Thursday it’s Eucharist. Evensong is from 5.30pm to 6pm, but Eucharist on a Thursday is a bit longer because you get the bread and wine. At Evensong we just sing the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis.

On a sunday we have to be at the cathedral at 9.25am for a rehearsal before the service. We usually sing a bit on our own and then we go through to the cathedral to practise with the lay clerks for about an hour. We have a Eucharist in the morning, and then later in the afternoon we go back to the cathedral to rehearse for an hour before doing Evensong. I do homework on a Wednesday and Saturday, so there is quite a lot of time to do it. And you’re also allowed to use the computers at some break times during the day.

It’s quite tiring but you get used to it, it just becomes part of your life. My friends aren’t just the other choristers, it’s kind of everyone mixed together - I have lots of friends who are instrumentalists. I really enjoy being a chorister. You get used to more repertoire, and it’s quite fun to be there with lots of other people and you’re all just sharing this music. Sometimes I sing in my own time as well, and at home I sing for my family on special days of the year.

I always liked singing when I was little, and my entire family is music-based. My brother goes to St Mary’s Music School as well and he was a chorister so he’s been through the whole thing, and now he’s an instrumentalist.

My dad is also really involved in music, and my mum plays the violin. When I was small I was introduced to so much music, it was a really good opportunity. My dad has an orchestra, and I want to play in it when I’m older. I play the french horn and apparently there aren’t that many french horn players. I just want to be part of an orchestra, it’s a nice feeling, and that’s the same when you’re part of a choir.

The younger choristers are learning new repertoire every day because they’re so new to it, but I’m more used to the music by now, so often something comes along and I know it. It helps to remember the piece. I’ve done a recording which is going on the BBC, and I was the soloist on it. It was fun, but I was nervous. The people were really nice though, it was a really supportive environment. We usually have quite a lot of services during the holidays. We sing lots of famous music, and the services are long but it’s quite fun. My parents come to a lot of the concerts as well, they’re proud of me for what I do.”