Musical Youth

But what if you've got all the preparations to do, alongside attending every single carol service and more?

Well, the choristers at Hereford Cathedral have to do just that - and spare a thought for cathedral organist and director of music Geraint Bowen, who's not only putting in the hours with them to ensure they're note perfect for a raft of services in the week before Christmas, he's directing or playing at other services, having already made sure the choir's got something to sing in the first place.

Normal service during term-time for the cathedral choir means singing eight services a week anyway but the pressure really starts to build with preparations for the afternoon Advent Sunday service, in which they process around the cathedral, stopping to sing at various points. "We have a special rehearsal in the cathedral the previous Friday where we practise walking the route," says Geraint. "We only do it once a year and there'll always be a certain number of boys who've never done it before.That's increasingly well attended, a lot of people almost seem to prefer it."

Then it's back to the ordinary eight-service routine for the next few days until the traditional Boy Bishop ceremony at Evensong.

By then, term is coming to an end, which is marked by the Cathedral School carol service, for which the choristers are back in action to sing a couple of items that are then reprised the next morning, for the last day for the junior school.

The choristers literally have three days off and then Christmas has arrived - with bells on. December 19 sees them picking up the festive music for the first time in morning and afternoon 90-minute sessions.

"There's a lot of stuff we only do once a year and a lot of stuff we don't even do once because I always try to put some new stuff in," says Geraint who, by now, has already set up a couple of days aside to chose the music.

"I get all my books out and have a look and see what we've done over the last five years, so there's a balance.

"If there's something we did last year that went particularly well for the first time, I might decide to give it a go this year. If there's something else that's been done for three or four years I'll give it a rest so we keep the stuff rotating."

With the structure of Hereford's service very similar to the famous Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College, Cambridge, Geraint likes to choose about 10 carols.

"It's an interesting task to balance a mixture of unaccompanied and accompanied ones," he says. "To balance modernish compositions with old faves, balance fast with slow and choose some which pick up the themes of the lesson which has just gone before it. But I wouldn't put down anything I didn't like," he smiles. "That's the director's privilege but, when there's such a huge amount of stuff around, the challenge is more about being spoilt for choice than anything else."

December 20th and it's another morning and afternoon rehearsal for the boys, who are joined for part of the second session by the Lay Clerks (the adults who sing the alto, tenor and bass in the choir).

That'll be a rehearsal for Christmas Day as the group has to "get ahead" explains Geraint, before listing further morning and afternoon rehearsals on the following days before the big carol services on December 22 and 23. 3

2 The evening of the 21st sees them practising in the cathedral - a surprsingly rare occurrence. "We only rehearse in there about three times a year," says Geraint. "One is if we do a BBC broadcast of choral evensong, the second is for the Advent carol service and the third for the Christmas carol service, otherwise they're all in the song school.

"There's a lot of walking around in that service and one of the boys has to sing the first verse of Once in Royal David's City. That's the time we rehearse that." At Kings College, none of the choristers know in advance who will sing that opening solo, thus avoiding hours of performance nerves, but things are done slightly differently in Hereford, as Geraint explains. "My Kings colleague will have tried out three or four boys for the solo and will probably know who it's going to be and just before the red broadcast light goes on at three o'clock on Christmas Eve, points at one boy and says 'that one'.

"Well, I'd have two or three boys who I reckon are quite a good bet for it and I will try them out the night before, so they experience what it's like to do it - it is quite a big moment to open the service in front of 1,500 people. But I will decide at least the night before or that morning and tell the boy." There's more rehearsing on the morning of the 22nd and even more just before the service proper. There's just time for some light refreshments and then it's time to start "bang-on" at 7pm.

Last year marked the first time the cathedral held two carol services in a bid to satisfy demand so, with the same thing happening this year, the boys will be back in song school on the 23rd just to recap "anything they could do better" before their repeat performance.

Christmas Eve, a Sunday, will see the morning service sung with hymns, the second service said and Evensong held later, be shorter in length and completed by the blessing of the Crib.

"Then we all go off home and the little boys go to bed and, hopefully, don't wake up too early the next morning to look at their stockings and presents," Geraint concludes cheerfully.

The end is in sight but there's no let-up. It may be Christmas Day but the boys are still expected to walk through the song school door at 8.50am for an 8.55am rehearsal. That finishes at 9.50am, giving everyone time to robe up for Eucharist at 10am.

"There are so many people at that service it's quite a challenge to start the next one at 11.30am" Geraint points out. However, following that service it's time for a grand Christmas lunch in College Hall which is arranged for the choristers and their families by their parents.

There's just one more to go - Evensong at 3.30pm. "You might think nobody would turn up as they're all asleep by then, but in fact we get a very big congregation," says Geraint. "And then that's it, they're on holiday." So that's Christmas week then. Geraint agrees it's quite an intense period of work. "The choir is at its most high profile. Now we have two carol services, there are approaching 2,500 people to see them but the boys always rise to that. They love the carol service and Christmas in general.

"It's a long hard week but we try to keep it condensed. Our boys are very much used to rehearsing on a very short timescale with a particular goal in view; that's what they're optimised to do.

"Last year was very interesting for me because we did two carol services for the first time and I was interested to see how the choir would respond to the challenge of not feeling the first one was the real one.

"If you only do one, you pour everything into it. The moment you do two there's either a worry that the first one will be seen as a dress rehearsal or the second one won't be as good, but actually I was delighted by the way they raised their game for both nights."

For a full list of services at the cathedral, along with ticket details, visit www.herefordcathedral.org/events.asp or call 01432 374212.

Service Dates

December 2

Christmas Sparkle, Hereford Cathedral, 1.15-2pm.

Free lunchtime concert by Peter Dyke, assistant organist, of Advent and Christmas favourites.

December 3

Advent Carol Service and Procession. 3.30pm

December 16

Carols for Shoppers, noon-1.30 pm. All welcome.

December 22

Festival of Lessons & Carols. 7pm.

There's some things for which you just can't prepare.

Geraint, pictured choosing some of the cathedral's music for Christmas, remembers his "previous life" as assistant organist at St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, when a Christmas Eve service was broadcast live on the radio station RTE.

"I was given a transistor radio so I could tell when it was time to stop playing for the boy to sing Once in Royal," he recalls.

"I was told 'when you hear - and now we're going over live to St Patrick's Cathedral - that's when you stop playing.

"Well I was up there in the organ loft listening to this radio and four o'clock came and went, 4.01 came and went, 4.02 came and went and I thought 'what's going on here?'

"Then I got a bit concerned because I realised I should have been hearing the news in English at 3.59 but all I was hearing was the news in Irish and I started to realise the radio hadn't been tuned to the right station.