Thursday 27 June was the Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Patron of the Diocese of Middlesbrough. To celebrate, 300 children from schools in the Diocese of Middlesbrough’s Schools Singing Programme, part of the National Schools Singing Programme, came together to sing Mass in the Cathedral with the Bishop of Middlesbrough as Principal Celebrant.

All but one of the schools in the programme were represented, with children and staff from as far as Marske on the North Yorkshire coast and from York. The Bishop was joined by priests from many of the parishes represented by the schools. The children sang four traditional hymns, the Lourdes mass setting, and Simon Lindley’s Ave Maria. Children from the schools who sing with one of the Cathedral’s choirs robed and sat together, leading some sections by themselves, with one Year 4 chorister singing a brief solo.

All of the music had been prepared in whole-class singing sessions during the school day every week, led by either Choral Director, Andrea Maxson or Diocesan Director of Music, Steven Maxson. Good weather between the rehearsal on the day and the Mass saw the children enjoy their lunch break outside – the Google Street View car even came to take photographs, so the event will live on!

The Bishop of Middlesbrough, the Right Reverend Terence Patrick Drainey described the sound of the children as he left the sacristy as “a wall of sound”, as they filled the Cathedral with music from that written this year to traditional plainsong tones written many centuries ago.