Parish church organ scholars

[stewartt]

I play at a village church with functioning SATB choir including juniors, middle-of-the road Eucharistic services including anthems, voluntaries and improvisations, congregations of 75+ who really sing the hymns and a very fine Tickell organ. I have had one or two enquiries from up-and-coming young organists about the possibility of an organ scholarship. I'd like to encourage this as I think we could offer really useful experience but I have no idea what the going rate is for this type of arrangement in a small parish church. These would typically be people in their final year of school or first year of college/university and would probably be around during term time only. In my last church we paid choral scholars £100 per term. Is this the right sort of number do you think?

All advice/comment gratefully received.

[P DeVile]

Here at St Mary's Saffron Walden we have an organ scholarship scheme - details here: http://www.stmaryssaffronwalden.org/music/organ/

Best wishes

 

Peter

[wolsey]

You may want get in touch with such foundations listed here.

[stewartt]

Thank you, gentlemen, for this useful food for thought although the Saffron Walden scheme is very much more extensive than I have in mind. Nevertheless the information is very helpful. What we might offer is on a much smaller scale - just three or four services a month and tuition provided elsewhere by others much better qualified than I. There is little opportunity in our part of West Sussex, as far as I know,  for young aspiring organists apart from St Mary Portsea (again on a completely different scale). We would like to do something to address that, but it's not grand.