From the Parish Magazine November 2006.
Having just returned to the post of Director of Music at the Good
Shepherd after a gap of fifteen years I was struck immediately by how much the place has
changed for the better. Everybody seems happier and more involved in the decision making
process; the earlier period of rapid liturgical change and experiment throughout the whole
church has evolved into a more stable period, having rejected the worst of the
experiments, and services are far less frenetic than they used to be. Whilst I think the
Church of England spends far too much time worrying about unimportant issues I am very
positive about the future of the Church of England. People have been predicting its
imminent collapse since the time of Henry VIII and it has survived far more turbulent
times than the present.
I have never enjoyed either playing, or listening to, the organ but I
have always been very passionate about choir training and choral conducting. Over the
years I have studied with a number of tutors including Dr Eric Thiman (theory),
Victor Bradley (piano and theory), Anne Marsden Thomas, Peter Wright and Douglas Hawkridge
for organ and Martin Baker (of Westminster Cathedral) for extemporisation. Currently I am
studying the organ with William Whitehead, a brilliant young international prize-winner at
St Mary's Bourne Street, Pimlico, and singing with Hilary Llysten Jones in Winchester. She
is particularly experienced in giving singing lessons for choirmasters. In addition to all
this I am very interested in architecture (particularly Georgian), the history of the two
World Wars, anything about London and psychology.
One of the strengths of the Good Shepherd is its diversity. Felix has
agreed that on the first Sunday in each month the choir can sing a choral, choir-only,
Mass setting and in turn I (and hopefully all of the choir) am fully committed to
involvement in the monthly family service. In fact, as a result of some very helpful and
amiable conversations with Meriel I have already taken over responsibility for the music
at the family service. At the recent Worship Committee meeting I was pleased that there
was so much support for my suggestion that the Eucharistic acclamations and the Lord's
Prayer should be said. I have spoken to a lot of people about the settings used on other
Sunday mornings and, almost without exception, we seem to agree that these should be few
in number but easy to sing and very obviously intended for a congregation to join in. At
this stage I intend to retain the very popular Mass of St Thomas by David Thorne and
introduce the widely known New People's Mass by Dom Gregory Murrary which is frequently
used at diocesan and national services. We will possibly use one other but this has yet to
be decided.
A major problem for most parish churches - and even some cathedrals -
today is choir recruitment. I would not want to go back to my earliest days here in the
70s and 80s when we had over 40 in the choir but I would like to see the choir stalls on
both sides of the chancel comfortably filled. Helped by Hilary Morfitt and Alex Farley
(the new director of music at Lancing Prep) we are relaunching the junior choir at the
beginning of November and you will see and hear a lot of publicity about this elsewhere.
Also I am very anxious to recruit young adults. To do this I am trying to establish
contact with various secular choirs and am investigating the possibility of tapping into
the vast local student/undergraduate population. With both juniors and young adults the
most difficult task is to get the first few in; once they have joined others should follow
more easily. We have a large, excellent and very varied library of choir music which has
been built up over the years by Brian Smith, Derek Froud and myself and we need to build
up the resources to enable us to use it all again. Our present choir members are very
loyal and devoted and I know that they would welcome new colleagues to enable them to do
more exciting and challenging music again.
Malcolm Kemp
If you require further information regarding the music of the church, or are
interested in taking part then please contact Malcolm directly on
Malcolm D Kemp FTCL LRAM ARCM ARCO(ChM)
39 Bear Road Brighton
BN2 4DA
Phone 681334 or 07977 189866
malcolmkemp@bearroad.fsnet.co.uk