Making music and making memories: All Saints Choir in Cambridge 21st June 2025

Well, we certainly weren’t going to need coats. The temperature in Cambridge was predicted to exceed 30 degrees, so we loaded up with suncream, floppy hats and water, and we were ready and waiting by the church gates as the coach rolled around the corner at 8.50am. We piled on, stuffed our robes and bags in the shelving above the seats, and then we were off. And there was air conditioning! What bliss!

This day out had been generating a sense of anticipation ever since Simon, our Director of Music, had first mooted it some months ago. In recent weeks a crescendo of excitement had swollen from f to ff, but what was all the fuss actually about?

Partly it was down to the fact that we were making history by singing for the first time in the chapel of our Patron, Emmanuel College, with whom, as we were reminded on the day by Jeremy Caddick, Dean and Chaplain of the College, All Saints has enjoyed a connection since the 1580s.

Partly it was about the music itself. For our service of choral evensong we were singing: Hildegard of Bingen’s ‘Praise to the Trinity’; Psalm 24; Smith’s Preces and Responses; Walmsley’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in D minor; and, to top it all off, ‘The Heavens are Telling’ from Haydn’s Creation. It was a programme of beautiful, hopeful, joyful music that we love to sing, especially in a building that gives as much back as Emmanuel Chapel.

Partly it was about the opportunity to spend time in Cambridge doing whatever we fancied:

·      Floating down the Cam in a punt whilst sipping Pimms – all at an exorbitant price, of course

·      Taking a tour of the incomparable Kings College Chapel, led by our former All Saints Rector, Revd Dr Stephen Cherry, whose knowledge of the chapel is astonishing, whose storytelling is as entertaining as it is educational, and whose hospitality, offered together with Maggie, his wife, is wonderfully kind

·      Finding a cool, shady spot to enjoy a peaceful lunch, coffee or ice-cream (or two…or maybe even three?) whilst watching those with shiny new degrees and their proud families enjoy graduation day

Partly it was about renewing old connections and forging new ones with All Saints members and friends of all ages and from different eras. It was a particular delight that past choir members and music makers were able to sing with us again, and we hope that they will always feel welcome to do so.  

But whatever (sometimes literally) floated our boat, the truth of the matter is that, as always with God, and as always with music, these diverse elements came together on that beautiful day and in that lovely place to make something uniquely new and harmonious. It was a thing so much greater than the sum of its parts. It was replete with old affections and it was full of promise for the future.

There were many who contributed to making the day a success – so many that it would be unsafe to try to list them. But we owe an extra special thanks to Jeremy Caddick at Emmanuel and, of course, to our own Simon Headley, Director of Music. How wonderful if this could be the start of a new All Saints tradition!  

Anne Meredith 26/06/2025