Wayns Augmented February 2026 Half Term Blog
Looking back; looking forward
It is befitting of the month of January-named for the two-faced Roman God Janus who looks both to the past and the future- that this first half-term of the year has caused us to look both back and forward.
We have been made to look back with gratitude at the many years of loyal support we’ve had from Father John Cutter, following the sad news of his passing on 21st January. S1 Caroline Wainwright’s beautiful tribute to this old friend of the choir (which was shared via Wayns Weekly) has now been placed [here] in the remembrance section of our member’s page. Do visit this page and read Caroline’s poignant piece if you haven’t yet had the opportunity to do so.
Father John Cutter after receiving the medal as a Companion of St Swithun
Thankfully we have also been given good reason to look forward and onwards this half term, with January’s open rehearsals and subsequent auditions giving us five new recruits. As is always the case our new members bring with them not only their voices but a wealth of different musical backgrounds and experience to enrich and expand our choir.
Here they are to tell us a little about themselves:
Rachel Nutt S1
I joined my local church choir at age 9 and have carried on singing since! I was a girl chorister at Bristol and in the national youth choir, lots of choirs while at University in York, and then the Bach Choir and Chantage in London before moving to Winchester in 2015. Since then I have sung in Winchester Cathedral Chamber Choir, Winchester Consort, and now Southern Voices. I work as a Clinical Psychologist in the NHS. I’m looking forward to singing some big works in lovely places with the Wayns, following in my Godmother Daphne Johnston’s footsteps!
Mark Nall B1
Music has always been a big part of my life. I grew up in Derbyshire progressing as a Trumpeter through the county orchestras and as a Cornet player in local brass bands, leading eventually to a Music degree at Bangor in North Wales. I was an enthusiastic member of the university operatic society before taking up the baton and serving as musical director in my final year.
Working life took me into advertising and to London where I joined the English Chamber Choir with whom I sang for 10 years under Guy Protheroe. Regular Christmas gigs included the Guards Chapel Help for Heroes Christmas service and the Buckingham Palace staff Christmas Party. Throw in some varied and at times frankly odd commercial recording work and it all added up to a great choral experience!
Children came along (four!) and with the first, a move to Winchester 24 years ago. Family life took precedence for a while before the music broke out again, in an unexpected direction -as the lead singer of a busy local rock covers / party band The Mike Parker Experience. Any remaining free time you'll find me spending with my now adult children and wife Kathryn, ideally outdoors. We’ve recently moved onto College Walk, so it'll be a very short walk home after cathedral concerts for me.
Singing in the cathedral Christmas service with the Kings School parents' choir for the last few years reawakened the urge to sing some "proper" music again with a more demanding ensemble. I am therefore delighted to be joining the Wayns and looking forward to many memorable performances and, equally importantly, to meeting you all and making new friends in music!
Catherine Gough, A2
I'm excited to be joining the Wayns after a bit of a gap, having sung in chamber choirs and choral societies for much of my life, and am very grateful for the friendly welcome.
I moved to Winchester three years ago, prompted by an empty nest and retirement (I was a copywriter and editor, mostly in HE and the public sector). I play the violin and viola in several local orchestras and chamber groups, and enjoy cycling, walking, gardening, painting and French classes. I'm also a volunteer listener for Winchester Bereavement Support.
I'm greatly looking forward to singing with such an excellent choir, and can't imagine a better way to begin than the Dream of Gerontius!
Hilary Otter S1
I was lucky to have lots of music at home as a child and I grew up playing chamber music regularly with my father initially and then with friends from the various London music colleges. As far as singing was concerned, I was also fortunate to have a demanding choir mistress at school – she insisted on high standards of singing and sight reading and my happiest school memories are of singing Durufle’s requiem in Canterbury cathedral.
Many years later, with very small children, we moved from Cambridge to near Bramdean and I joined what is now Winchester Philharmonic choir. I have have sung with them ever since. Working as a full-time teacher meant I had little time for non-school related activities, so now I have retired I relish the opportunity to do much more. I sing with the Ropley Kings singers and Froxfield choir. I also regularly attend various workshops in London and I sing with Paul Spicer’s Camerata groups. I am excited and delighted to be joining the Wayns and I am looking forward to the challenge.
Tessa Greenhalgh S1
I moved to Winchester a few years ago for a consultant post at Southampton hospital and since then have mainly been singing nursery rhymes to my children, now 3 and 5. Prior to that I sang in chamber choirs including Kingfisher chorale (East mids), amateur opera (most memorably Despina from Cosi fan tutte) and in sketch shows including a brief stint at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I had the privilege as a teenager of joining the Namibian National Youth choir for a tour in South Africa. I have missed being part of a choir and am looking forward to joining the Wayns and tackling the amazing programmes coming up.
A warm Wayns welcome to you all!
Living The Dream once more
We have begun our rehearsals for Gerontius in earnest this half term, working hard to fine tune our performance with pinpoint precision thanks of course to Andy (and George) but also to Duncan Eves, our programme notes writer whose detailed research has brought the directions of Elgar himself to life for us, helping us try and sing in exactly the manner which Elgar intended. Duncan has also unearthed some great Gerontius-related photos for us- here they are along with Duncan’s notes:
Elgar with the finished score of Gerontius.
Above photo by William Eller, a Manchester shipping merchant, keen amateur photographer and friend of Elgar. He had arranged to have lunch with Elgar on 3 August 1900 and, by sheer chance, Elgar had just finished the complete score just before Eller arrived.
"I cycled over from Ledbury to lunch with him ... he was greatly relieved at having that instant written his name under the score of the last bar [of Gerontius] ... I begged Elgar to remain just as he was while I went down and fetched my camera."
- William Eller, 3 August 1900
Eller also took some photos of Elgar holding the score, but in one of these Elgar was inadvertently holding the score upside down!
The last page of the score.
The famous quote from John Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies:
“This is the best of me; for the rest I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory”
Birchwood Lodge, Storridge, near Malvern.
Elgar composed Gerontius while living here. Zoom in and you can see Elgar and his wife Alice standing in the garden. (Amongst the people that came to visit him here were Dora Penny (“Dorabella’ of ‘Enigma’ Variations fame) and a young Arnold Bax, who came to ask advice about being a composer. Elgar’s advice was that it probably wasn’t worth becoming a composer!!)
Surrounded by woodlands and with a view to the Malvern hills, Elgar said: “The trees are singing my music - or have I sung theirs?”
The Hierarchy of Angels
In many works- and in the chorus at measure 72 of Gerontius in particular- we sing the names of a wide variety of heavenly hosts. After one of this term’s exciting rehearsals of this chorus it occurred to S2 Caroline Hayes that we might like to see this: a Hierarchy of Angels, according to Christian angelogy (follow the embedded links to read more)
Highest orders
Middle orders
Virtues
Powers
Lowest orders
Principalities
Archangels
Angels
So now we can see that the triple forte at measure 73 comes only when we have finally invoked the names of the cherubim and then the seraphim- the very highest orders!
“When we sing, we cease to be scum”
We turn now from the highest orders of the seraphim, who sing endless praises in the heights, to us- mere mortals and ordinary humans, singing together in an earthly choir. Choir secretary and A1 Kate Spencer recently came across something all about the likes of us in a book she read at her book club. She writes:
My book club has just read Joseph O’Connor’s book ‘My Father’s House’. It’s a fictional account of real-life people and events in Rome in 1943. Rome was occupied by Nazi forces but had many escapees trying to get back home to the UK, Ireland and other places.
A Vatican priest set up an Escape Line to help these people. It was risky for all involved. The organising members met under the guise of being members of a small choir. It is a wonderful book but as I was reading it, I came upon this paragraph and couldn’t get it out of my mind. Indeed, I read it out loud to my fellow book club members as it struck a chord with me (sorry for the pun!) and summed up not just the power of singing with others but also the effect of working/cooperating with others-:
“ Some consolation of the spirit, some release happens when human beings sing in a group, wherever and however that occurs. In a place of worship, the terraces of a football stadium, in a cramped and draughty attic, bombers droning overhead. Nearly all music has beauty, but when it includes the marriage of baritone and soprano, of bass and alto, chorus and soloist, it becomes something more than merely the upliftingly beautiful. Harmony is an everyday, achievable miracle. Imagine having been the first person to think of it, to attempt it with another. I shall sing this. You sing that. Something greater than you or I will result. And, as everyone who has ever heard singing in a classroom knows well, when we are not wonderful singers, are in fact not musically gifted, singing has a special sort of sacredness that is impossibly moving. When we sing, we cease to be scum.”
Thank you Kate for sharing this beautiful passage that surely strikes a chord and chimes and resonates with us all!
The reference in the passage to singing in a classroom is particularly prescient as this half term Wayns Augmented spoke to A1 Annabel Larard, who told us all about her amazing charity Primary Robins, which brings singing into the schools and lives of children who would otherwise have little exposure to music. Read our interview with Annabel in the following blog and find out why she had the best excuse ever for missing a rehearsal last year- and what that excuse was!
Hopefully you have enjoyed the cornucopia of fabulous content in this half term’s blog post- many thanks to all our contributors! Maybe you have something you would like to contribute to a future blogpost? Perhaps like Kate you’ve found a depiction of singing or music in literature that you’d like to share? Or something else you just think we might be interested to see, as with Caroline and the Hierarchy of Angels? If so then please do join the party and share your piece with Jacki Donnellan jacki@donnellan.org.uk or Sarah Jones sj@luminaconsulting.com
But for now let’s go forth- and have a very happy half term holiday!