As you may have heard, something rather special happened this week. A long time ago, (well, last weekend), in an awards studio far, far away (5,400 miles actually), a Star Wars video game soundtrack featuring the choristers won a Grammy award. As named artists in the recording, the choristers are now officially Grammy award winners. Soundtrack composer Stephen Barton is a former chorister. Like many of us alumni, he found himself turning to his own time at Pilgrims’ for some inspiration in his professional life. After the Grammy announcement, in which we were delighted to have been credited by Stephen, older choristers who were involved in the recording have subsequently found themselves on BBC South Today, ITV news, BBC Radio Solent and BBC Radio 5 Live!
This week also saw the release of the Quiristers’ most recent professional recording, ‘Lo, the full, final sacrifice’. The outcome of hours and hours of dedicated rehearsal and performance with the London Mozart Players, this fantastic achievement is equally something those Qs who were involved will look back on with enormous pride. It sounds terrific.
In both instances, the Cs and Qs have gained and consolidated skills that will benefit them whatever they may eventually go on to do. Being in a recording studio environment demands high levels of performance, self-discipline, a heightened team accountability and a readiness to put up with things beyond your control (such as a passing plane that means you have to go back and re-start the take as if it was freshly the first time!).
However, here’s the important thing. It is, of course, every single Pilgrim – not just the Cs and Qs – who is experiencing, gaining and building upon the wide array of opportunities and activities their time with us provides. The boys are encouraged to give their very best at all times; which, given how busy the school is, is a real undertaking! Whether the thousands of alumni the School now has are consciously drawing on their Pilgrims’ experience or not, it will undoubtedly be there as the foundations of their character and no doubt, therefore, a wide array of key life decisions.
We happen to be on a singing focus at the moment, but could equally be talking sport, drama (there are two productions upcoming) or the creative and artistic. Let’s stay with singing for a while longer though… I remember Mr Duncan wrote last year of the importance and power of communal singing and that in public terms it is an increasingly rare thing. Its benefits are considerable, particularly if in a performance context, and it is of course something we at Pilgrims’ do by the bucket load. A scan through the filmed recording of our last carol service (which can be found here: Carol Service 2023 serves as a reminder of how much every single Pilgrim gets from their regular experience of communal singing (or will get as soon as they’re old enough in the case of our youngest boys).
What we hear, or don’t hear, on a regular basis can have a fundamental impact on our sense of wellbeing. How much this is hardwired into us is demonstrated by the proliferation of apps, YouTube channels and devices designed to promote calmness of mind through the repetitive ‘background’ use of soft natural sounds. The regular experience of quiet, even silence, interspersed with such sounds was ubiquitous for primitive humans and so is fundamental to our soul. Yet within that context, humans also found the incredible gift and versatility of their own voice; quite the most remarkable and adaptive of instruments, capable of bringing communication, community, harmony and joy. Singing connects us and gives us expression. It is such a blessing that at Pilgrims’ this is simply a part of who we are. To get an international music award for it is just a lovely cherry on the cake.
[And – as if the gentlest curl of a smile at the corner of God’s mouth – just as I have literally typed these last words, a lone boy has walked across the quad outside my study singing beautifully and without a care, before silence returned.]
May I wish you all a wonderful half term.
Tim Butcher
Headmaster
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