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After a long recruitment process, we have also been delighted to appoint Flick Scott as our first ever Younger Disciples Lead (fancy title for a role focused work with children and families). Flick comes to the job with impressive experience as a primary school teacher and is, of course, very well known to us as a member of the choir. Her new role is generously funded by the Church of England’s Strategic Development Fund, giving us a once-in-a-generation chance to kick-start work with the Christians of the future.

The Annual Parochial Church Meeting of the Parish of St Mary the Virgin, the Lace Market, Nottingham. 

This will take place on Sunday 25^th May at 12.35pm in St Mary’s Church for the purpose of the election of parochial representatives of the laity as follows: to the Parochial Church Council seven representatives. 

Nomination forms are available in church, through the parish office and on the parish website. Completed forms should be put in the box by the south porch door or returned to the parish office by noon on 23^rd May 2025.

We announced some significant news on Sunday morning!

After 41 years as St Mary’s Director of Music, John Keys has decided to retire on 30^th September.

It is hard to over-state what an era will come to an end as John steps down. Thanks to his care, expertise, and passion for music, we are privileged to have our weekly worship enriched by one of the finest parish choirs in the country. His service to St Mary’s, and to music more widely, has been simply extraordinary.

Preparation of a New Electoral Roll

The Church of England requires all parishes to compile a completely new list every six years of people who wish their names to be entered on the parish Electoral Roll.  2025 is one of those years and everyone, including those already on the current Electoral Roll, must complete a new application form.

It was announced yesterday that our Assistant Curate, The Rev’d Pippa Scott, will be leaving us after Christmas to take up the post of Associate Priest at St Mary le Tower, Ipswich. Her last Sunday with us will be Sunday 5th January 2025.

She will be greatly missed by staff, volunteers, and congregation alike, but we wish her all the very best and are praying for her as she prepares to move in the new year.

Congratulations, Pippa!

We were thrilled to announce before Easter that The Rev’d Dr James Saunders will be our next Vicar. He won’t be installed until December but in the meantime he has written us an article so we can start to get to know him a little better.

Introducing Our New Vicar!

The Rev’d Dr James Saunders writes:

I won’t forget the moment when Archdeacon Phil asked if I’d like to be Vicar of St Mary’s. What an offer – to serve a wonderful church with so much promise and opportunity! I’m enormously grateful to everyone I met during the interview process for placing their confidence in me. I’ll try to deserve it.

FROM THE ARCHDEACON’S OFFICE:

The Reverend Canon James Benedict John Saunders at present Chaplain of Uppingham School and Honorary Canon at Peterborough Cathedral in the Diocese of Peterborough to be Vicar in the benefice of St Mary the Virgin, The Lace Market, Nottingham here in the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham.

When Macharia Kelvin Njoroge auditioned for a choral scholarship in January 2023, he wowed us with his glorious baritone voice. Now in his final year as a music student at the University of Nottingham, he has been offered scholarships at both the Royal College and Royal Academy of Music. Macharia, as we all know him, sat down with Will Burn to talk about his remarkable story and his exciting plans for the future.

Macharia, you came to Nottingham from Kenya. Would you tell us a little about your upbringing and where your love of music came from?

I was the sixth child in a family of seven. I’ve been interested in singing for as long as I can remember: my mother says I sang before I could speak. She’s very musical, and she taught me to sing hymns when I was little. I would sing everything I heard on the radio, songs in Kikuyu, a widely spoken vernacular language around Nakuru county, where I grew up. When I was born, one of my legs was shorter than the other due to a congenital condition.

When I was around 13, I had a chronic foot ulcer, and my leg had to be amputated. I ended up dropping out of school. I was in a wheelchair, but I still had my interest in music. I started learning piano, and I used to carry a keyboard in my wheelchair from my church elder’s home to church for practice. Then, one day, on my way to church, I met a stranger who took interest in me. This woman was a teacher at Joytown Primary School, a school for learners with physical disabilities, and she voluntarily sponsored me to go there, where I could access teaching and support. I also sang in the school choir.

After finishing my studies at Joytown, I won a scholarship to the M-PESA Foundation Academy, where I met a teacher called Nathaniel Nyagol, a very talented music teacher who had trained in the USA. After my choir experience at Joytown, I knew I wanted to do music professionally, but Mr Nyagol saw my passion for music, and he inspired me to dream even bigger. I wanted to go to America like him!

How did you come to study in Nottingham?

There was a teacher at my school whose wife had studied at Nottingham. She advised me to come and study here, and after doing an online preparatory course, I moved to Nottingham in January 2021.

You became a choral scholar two years later, in January 2023. How have you enjoyed your time as a member of the choir of St Mary’s?

I would start by saying that our church traditions are quite different. In Kenya, my church music experience was a lot of congregational singing, and choral singing was mainly a combination of elements of Western music and tunes from Kenya, harmonising the two worlds. It’s very rhythmic with lots of drums as well. Here, it was clear the standard of the choral singing was very high. It’s a professional choir where you learn a lot of challenging music, but you have very little time to learn it. I would say that’s the main difference.

As a musician, I took on a choral scholarship to challenge myself to improve my sight-reading skills, and that is one area that has improved a lot in a short time. The pace is fast, and there was quite a learning curve for me initially, but it has gotten easier with time. Overall, it has been a great experience. It’s challenging, which is important for you to grow, but it’s also a very supportive environment, and the more experienced singers have been very helpful.

For me, though, the Choral Scholars’ Concert sums up my experience of St Mary’s, collaborating with my fellow singers and introducing something different, a piece written by my teacher Nathaniel Nyagol. People were really open to that, and the scholars really appreciated it. That sums it up for me: I’m learning a lot of different music, but I can also share the music of my own country, which I’m very proud of.

Now you’re coming to the end of your studies at the University of Nottingham and have been offered scholarships to study at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. What was that experience like?

Studying at Nottingham has been successful in a lot of ways. I have been studying singing with Richard Haworth, and during my studies, I have twice won the Department of Music Prize for best music student. Last year, I was awarded the Madelena Casulana Prize for the best performance of a work by a female composer.

Thanks to this experience, my confidence has grown, and I came to believe it was realistic to consider a career as a professional singer, so I decided to apply to the two colleges. It was quite a challenge as you do not know what the outcome will be, and they are both very competitive. Nevertheless I truly enjoyed auditioning for them, partly because I was well prepared and partly because it was a nice environment to perform in. Getting to sing in the recital hall at the Royal College was like another dream coming true for me. I haven’t made up my mind yet about where I want to study, and there are still some challenges to overcome before I can accept one of the offers.

What are they?

I was offered partial merit scholarships at both institutions which cover quite a considerable amount of my tuition fee, but funding remains a big challenge for me. I’m working hard on that at the moment, but the practicalities of finding sponsorship will decide where I can study. My current scholarship ends when I complete my degree in Nottingham, so after that, I will have to find a new source of funding.

You’ve been invited to give a recital in Southwell Minster on 5 April. What will you be performing there?

I want to focus on spirituals as an art form. I performed some at high school, but I took them more seriously at university. I was particularly inspired by the five spirituals from Michael Tippett’s A Child of our Time. I have been studying their history, and I find them so rewarding, not only in their music but also in their religious and philosophical dimensions. This is a chance for me to share my interpretation of the art form.

Your Christian faith is very important to you. How what role does it play in your life today?

I would say my Christian faith underpins everything I do in my life. It gives me hope and a moral compass. It forms the basis of how I see the world. I came from a very Christian home, and I grew up singing hymns with my family. I see God in every challenge I have overcome in my life so far, and that’s why I have a very strong faith in Him.

Looking ahead, what would be your dream role in opera and which singers have particularly inspired you?

Rossini’s Barber of Seville, no doubt. He’s such an interesting character, so energetic and out there. In terms of singers, I was really inspired by Michael Spyres, who calls himself a “baritenor”. He has an amazing voice, and he overcame many challenges in his career. His interpretation of Rossini’s Figaro is so interesting. I also really admire Miriam Makeba, a singer from South Africa who sang South African music around the world. She was deeply political, and she was able to bring that music to a considerable level of respectability on the global stage.

Another thing which is very important to me is working with singers in Kenya and giving something back to them, particularly singers with disabilities. I think they’re often forgotten in the arts, so I am very passionate about addressing accessibility to music for people with disabilities. That’s what my dissertation focuses on, and whenever I go back to Kenya, I go back to Joytown School to teach music, conduct the choir and coach other young singers.

Thank you, Macharia. It’s been a joy to sing with you in the choir at St Mary’s and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for you.

Macharia will perform a programme of spirituals at Southwell Minster on Friday 5 April at 1.30 – 2.15 pm.