THE
P RTAL
September 2017
career sort of combined.
“I stayed at Barnard Castle and was school organist
for four years. Then I moved to be Director of Music at
Yarm when I was only 25. But with Yarm being a day
school we had no chapel so I was able to go and play
across in Darlington for Fr Ian Greeves at St James. That
was my real involvement with a catholic community as
an adult I suppose. I stayed in contact and moved with
the Darlington group to the Ordinariate in 2012. In
the same year I was appointed at John Lyon school in
Harrow.
Page 8
of rubbish because I know that in the classroom
that young people will take to anything that you are
enthusiastic about. If you are really bouncing off the
walls with enthusiasm about something then young
people want to know what it is about.”
Our discussion about hymns prompted Jackie
to ask Keith, “If you were to choose a hymn for the
Ordinariate, what would it be?” Keith thought for a
few minutes before answering, “I think I would chose
‘Thy hand, O God, has guided thy Church from age to
age’. The opening line is apt, it is about our “fathers”
and there is the piece about ‘Through many a day of
“Mgr Keith Newton asked me to go in with Fr James darkness, Through many a scene of strife, The faithful
Bradley to coordinate things in Warwick Street just few fought bravely to guard the nation’s life’. It goes
over the Easter period, which I was quite happy to on to encourage us not to be faithless.” We thought
do. Then Fr Mark Elliott Smith was appointed parish this spot on. Maybe the Ordinariate of Our Lady of
priest and asked me to stay on and I said I would.
Walsingham should take Keith’s advice and adopt this
hymn as its anthem.
We discussed modern worship songs. Keith told us
that he now teaches at a Catholic Boys School. The
All too soon, it was time for us to leave. Keith’s
boys like to sing the old hymns, even true Catholic enthusiasm for the church, the faith and the music is
ones, things have been lost to this modern style. The infectious. Thank you, Keith. We are so pleased you
theology within the writing just isn’t the same, no are in post at Warwick Street.
depth at all. This led to a long discussion about hymns
and hymn tunes.
Keith Brown BMus (Hons) in Organ performance,
ALCM in Church Music, PGCE, FRSA
“So church music became my thing, and since then
I did an associate diploma with the London College of
Music on church music.
The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham
Keith continued, “The best parishes at the moment
that have good music are those where you have a
traditional organist who has been there for years and
who has built this up; the good, talented, choir masters
that have been at the church where they are at now,
ten, twenty or thirty years. I’m thinking of places like
The Holy Trinity, Washington, in the North East, or
Wakefield, or the choir of Pinner parish church. I
think St Peter’s has a good choir now in St Albans.
It’s something that has been set up years ago and
continues.
“Different vicars come with different attitudes; they
bring a keyboard and there is no need for the four part
choral signing. Some think that choirs need to lead
congregations, they do. But the members of the choir,
certainly children in the choir, need to be challenged,
and if you challenge them with difficult music then
they rise to it. If you give them something which is
easy, for ten minutes they might love it because its
jolly, but when you’ve done it for the fifty-sixth time
then they get bored.
“This is the thing. There is a generalisation that
people don’t like classical music. It’s an absolute load
at
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Lay Conference
at Worth Abbey
7 th , 8 th , 9 th August 2018