Farewell Speech Michael Fulcher Organist & Director of Music
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Farewell Speech 8 May 2011 Michael Fulcher Organist & Director of Music http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons
I wanted to say a few words of thanks on this my last Sunday as Organist and DOM of the Cathedral. I have enjoyed so many aspects of my role here:
• Training Choristers, seeing them develop week by week; • Lending black socks to a Chorister who has forgotten their own; • Eating biscuits, um, I mean fresh fruit with the Choristers; • Training the organ scholars; • Week by week building up the Cathedral Choir; • Recording Cathedral Choir CDs; • Preparing soloists for their solos in the Viennese masses; • Forming the SPC (St Paul's Chorale) & seeing it flourish; • Making links with the City; • Preparing for organ recitals; • Getting the reeds stops cleaned and reset; Vox Humana installed; • The Sunday camaraderie with Vergers, servers, crucifers, bell-ringers, Wardens, sound people, clergy; • Weekday camaraderie with such groups as the flower arrangers, linen guild & sacristans and of course the Cathedral staff; • The maintaining of the weekly services especially Choral Evensong on Thursdays • The yearly rhythm of the liturgical year – I find it really anchoring
And this is just to name a few!
I have been blessed because here in Wellington Cathedral (apart from anything else) we have the best combination of organ and acoustic in NZ; the real value of this is that it has been a joy to make music which seeks to express the essence of the Divine beyond the spoken word each week as there are so many possibilities for expression with such an organ and the choirs we have here.
Looking back over the last 6 and a half years I wondered what the most important current there had been. Sure there have been many highlights but they are less important than the weekly cycle of worship offered. The Anglican tradition offers this wonderful wealth of liturgical seasons and matching music which we are privileged to enjoy.
It seems to me the most apposite word is Support, the Support that you, the Cathedral family, have given me from day one (1 October 2004). • Clergy team and office staff, Irene and Susan; • The music staff: Richard Apperley & Tom Gaynor latterly; • The Cathedral Companions who been so generous in financial support, this year particularly by funding the Richard Prothero Organ Scholarship; • The Vestry which has come through on so many supportive decisions for the Cathedral music; • the Chorister parents; • all Cathedral singers in all the Cathedral Choirs.
AND OUTSIDE THE CATHEDRAL FAMILY: • My fellow NZ DOM’s & Assistant Organists around the Anglican Cathedral network; • The RSCM (Royal School of Church Music) • The Choral Federation both locally and nationally; • Key school choir directors in Wellington and the region; • The VWO (Vector Wellington Orchestra) management
So much goes on behind the scenes here between services to prepare for them to make them the vital experience they need to be. So there are some special thanks to key people with whom I have worked:
Particular thanks go to Richard Apperley who has been as close to the ideal Assistant Organist as one could wish for. His consistent excellence as an organist and his real engagement with the Choir and Choristers has been a blessing. It has been wonderful to see the success he has had with his recent Kuhnau CD for example. On the rare occasion I have been away, it has been great to know the Cathedral Choir was in the safe hands of Richard and the organ scholars. I know that Richard will do a fine job looking after the Cathedral music in the coming weeks.
But speaking of organ scholars, hasn’t it been a special pleasure to see Thomas Gaynor develop so well over the past years? We all now know Thomas to be a fine player of solo organ music but you can see from this morning’s service we have in Thomas a highly competent accompanist as well. As Richard Apperley will tell you, playing the Viennese masses, their orchestral reductions, on the organ is not for the faint hearted. NZ has extreme sports; well accompanying a Viennese mass is extreme organ playing. Perhaps he should have donned ski helmet and ski suit rather than cassock and surplice this morning!
Volunteer energy is the backbone of this Cathedral. If it hadn’t been for Joan Clayton I would have been carried off by the men in little white coats to the asylum long ago. Not a day has passed since I started here where I wasn’t completely grateful to Joan for the phenomenal job she does in keeping the music library in one piece and keeping the choirs supplied with the right music to sing each week. When I formed the SPC, she began organizing their music before it was even discussed and when she was already taking care of the Cathedral Choir, the Choristers and the Cathedral Voices. It’s even more amazing since, as you know, she is a professional librarian. I have been blessed by her camaraderie in our weekly meetings. She is always good humoured. Her support on our 2008 Cathedral Choir tour was another lifesaver too. Ann Gaynor then Judith Norman worked at length each week alongside Joan to put Choristers' music in their folders too. Joan, I will miss you. Thank you so much.
Nancy McDonald and Sue Stiles latterly over the past years have been Trojan providers of the sustenance of Choir suppers on Thursday nights after Evensong. Thank you.
I would like to say a special thank you also to Richard Prothero who was a marvellous fount of avuncular support and institutional knowledge when I first arrived and has continued in the same vein to this day. Richard’s lifelong dedication and service to church music and the churches in which he has served is an inspiration. Richard, thank you!
Tim Hurd is not able to be with us today but I would like to say a brief word about him. I have greatly valued his expert contribution to the Cathedral Choir, often the same day as flying back to NZ on an international flight, with little complaint. We have also been fortunate to have benefited from his quick fire organ band-aiding (as we witnessed a couple of Sundays ago). He lent us his own grand piano for use in the choir room. Many of you will not know that Tim has significant organ building experience and is a Masters graduate in Organ performance from Yale University.
In mentioning this it brings me to the amazing amount of other expertise we have in the Cathedral choir including some other B. Mus. graduates. All in all though, we have a huge amount of talent and dedication in the members of the Cathedral Choir. Whatever posterity credits me with having achieved here, none of it would have been possible without the good will and tireless energy of our Cathedral choir, each member of which contributes their time and significant expertise on a volunteer basis. There have been so many service highlights from Midnight Masses to Nine Lessons and Carols to common and garden Sunday Evensongs in Ordinary time that I cannot isolate one. The willingness of Cathedral Choir members to come Sunday by Sunday and make such uplifting music has been a real blessing in my life. Judging by the many unsolicited pieces of complimentary feedback from members of the congregation, it has been a blessing in yours as well.
One highlight, the Cathedral Choir Tour of 2008 to England and Paris, brings me back to you the Cathedral family. Your support throughout the 2 year fund raising effort is merely symbolic of your overall support for the Cathedral music. It was an amazing inspiration to those of us that went and we have the Dean to thank for his insight in allowing us to mount the challenge of organizing such a tour. As Tour Manager, Judy Berryman was a constant source of sanity for me, both before the tour and during it. Her formidable experience, tenacity and capacity of hard work made it all happen. Watching the Royal Wedding recently in Westminster Abbey was especially pleasing because I have such fond memories of the privilege of singing a week of services in that very chancel.
We had the Choristers' official farewell on Tuesday evening but I would like to publicly thank Chorister Parent coordinator Emma Blunt who has been such a tower of strength and done a fabulous job in keeping the Choristers organized. In the same role, Clare Bush and Judy Wigglesworth have given years of vital service too. I have enjoyed the support of these key people. Needless to say though, the Choristers would be nothing without the support of the parents of the Choristers, who together give essential support to the successful and efficient life of the Choristers. You may be interested to know that a Chorister is not ever accepted unless I have met at least one parent first.
It would be remiss of me not to thank my dear wife Amanda for her support. Without complaint and often with much enjoyment she has hosted at our house numerous visiting international musicians. They include Dr Richard Marlow (over 3 consecutive years), Colin Walsh, Philip Scriven, Michael Leighton-Jones, Eugene Lavery and others. Her willingness to host choir hospitality around our BBQ for both Chorister and Cathedral Choir events is very pleasing to me. Moreover though, I have valued her day by day, week by week support: it has really helped me keep going. Thank you.
We have a wonderfully complementary clergy team here which Frank has gathered around himself as Dean. It has been terrific to have Alison Camplin as Chaplain to Choristers. She has been a wise, gentle and willing support to the Choristers, their families as well as to me. Alison, it has been a pleasure to share this ministry with you in such a spirit. Thank you. Likewise, it is always fun to work with Jenny Wilkens. Her unassailable good humour, long experience and consistent conscientiousness have been a great support to my work here. Dr Raymond Pelly has been a great floor colleague to me upstairs in the tower. It has been wonderful to have his sage advice and encyclopaedic knowledge just next door to my office. Raymond will doubtless enjoy my successor more though as he is less likely to swear at this computer screen quite as often!
Frank’s resolve to restructure the admin side of the Cathedral has been of tangible benefit to my life here. Susan Weehuizen has done a fantastic job in getting on top of the financial record keeping and reporting and I will miss her good humour and attention to detail. Running the music department in the wake of this was a quantum leap easier. And it is wonderful that Irene Bignall will be staying on in the role which she performs so well and with so much quiet faith.
As you know Frank and I started within two weeks of one another back in October 2004. I remember that I hit the ground running then and the pattern has continued much the same to the present day. How the Cathedral has grown since then! It is in no small part to Frank’s vision and resolve that this flowering has been possible. If I have achieved anything at all here it is due to the Stability achieved under Frank’s stewardship and guidance.
Frank has a very real connection, understanding & love of liturgy and the way in which music can lift and support it. He understands the power of music to reach worshippers and has thus a created an environment in which we in the Music Department could get on with making that music. All elements of the Cathedral music have had a place in the concept of worship, hospitality & education.
I have been particularly pleased with priority given to the Chorister Christian training which very quickly paralleled the musical training. Indeed, the programme of Christian training has been so successful that it has had tangible influence on other Cathedrals' approaches to Chorister Christian training. I remember Frank setting this as a priority early on. Under the banner of Worship Hospitality and Education, we have also been able to host visiting choirs from NZ and overseas. This trinity of purpose allowed me to relax and settle into the rhythm of that kind of working life.
I’d like to thank Christine and Frank for providing the Cathedral Choir with 3 highly musical offspring. But finally I’d like to thank Frank for he has successfully managed to facilitate the Integration of the various groups in the Cathedral family in the last 6 and a half years. I think this is a major achievement and sets a very firm foundation on which to grow. A greater depth of community feeling is palpable here. I can only hope that it will be as well integrated at St John’s Brisbane!
And as far as Brisbane is concerned, I was a boy Chorister there and went on to become Assistant Organist there for some 7 years. It is the parish with which my family has the longest connection and my mother and brother are nearby. Most of my relatives are back in England, the land of my birth. My late Father, Dennis, played a key role in the completion of St John’s Cathedral Brisbane, a project which was very close to his heart. He did live to see the building completed but not to enjoy the consecration. I was not looking around for anything a the time, but when I received the call to go and be organist there I felt really torn between the important work that is yet to be done there and the important work I have been engaged in here, not to mention the wonderful Cathedral family here in Wellington. It took some months to finalise our decision, after a lot of prayer and thought but in the end Amanda and I feel it is the right thing to do. My Dad was in the building industry and I seem always to have been called to serve in building up situations, often from difficult circumstances. There is so much building up to do there and I feel called to do that.
But today the biggest thank you is to you all as a community, a family, a whanau lead by Frank which readily accepted me at the outset and has been of such sterling support ever since. I will miss you all. Thank you.
