| St. Mary's Church, Moseley | |
| Denomination | Church of England |
|---|---|
| Churchmanship | Broad Church |
| Website | www.stmarysmoseley.co.uk |
| History | |
| Dedication | St. Mary |
| Administration | |
| Parish | Moseley |
| Deanery | Moseley |
| Archdeaconry | Birmingham |
| Diocese | Birmingham |
| Province | Canterbury |
| Clergy | |
| Vicar(s) | Revd Jeremy Dussek |
| Assistant | Revd Hazel White (From Feb 2012) |
| Honorary priest(s) | Revd Prof Frank Berry and Revd Caroline George |
| Laity | |
| Organist/Director of music | Mick Perrier |
| Churchwarden(s) | Peter Jupe and Trish Everett |
St. Mary's Church, Moseley is a parish church in the Church of England located in Moseley, Birmingham.
Contents |
St. Mary's Church, Moseley was licensed by the Bishop of Worcester (authorised by Pope Innocent VII) in February 1405, and the 600th anniversary was celebrated in 2005 with a series of special events.
The church is medieval.[1] The earliest known reference is by Pope Innocent VII in 1405.
It was rebuilt by J. A. Chatwin.
It is now part of a united benefice with St. Anne's Church, Moseley.
Special festival services that has fallen on the first Sunday has included Advent Lessons and Carols, All Souls service and Harvest Festival.
For both the 10:00am and 6:30pm services at St Mary's they are sung by either the Robed Choir or the St Mary's Singers and on some occasions jointly.
Music has always played a part in services at St. Mary’s and for more than the past hundred years the church has maintained a strong choral tradition. There are currently two choirs, firstly the St Mary's Choir, a traditional Robed Choir consisting of some 18 treble choristers (boys and girls) and 12 "back row" (Altos, Tenors and Basses), many of whom were formerly Trebles in the choir. There is also the St Mary's Singers consisting of adult singers including female sopranos. [3]
The Robed Choir as well as singing for the services of the church, undertakes singing holidays deputising for established Cathedral Choirs during their vacations. For many years they have had a choral exchange with the Eschersheim Youth Choir in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany (the latest in February 2005). In February 2000 and again in February 2004 the choir undertook a singing tour to Atlanta, Georgia, USA. During August 2006, they were Choir in Residence at Washington National Cathedral, USA during August 2006. Residencies has included Ripon Cathedral (2009), Portsmouth Cathedral (2008), St Asaph's Cathedral in Wales, Sherborne Abbey, last year Salisbury Cathedral and Romsey Abbey and this year (2011) at St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. This along with singing occasional services on Saturdays during the year, including Birmingham Cathedral, Hereford Cathedral, Bath Abbey, Gloucester Cathedral and Derby Cathedral. [4]
The St Mary's Singers has shared tours with the Robed Choir in Atlanta and the last few exchanges in Frankfurt, but has also done their own short breaks in Frankfurt and Prague. They have sung occasional services at Birmingham Cathedral and at Tewkesbury Abbey in 1977. [5] They sing for the opening and closing services for the 3D Course for the Birmingham Diocese at Birmingham Cathedral.
Finally there is also a small choir called St Mary’s Schola, which consists of a double quartet of singers drawn from the Robed choir and began sharing concerts at Moseley Festival with Rich Batsford. The concerts brought together musicians from different faith backgrounds, expressing spirituality through music. This collaboration is known as “Musituality”. This saw a concert in 2009 with a full capacity audience at Birmingham Cathedral with Buddhist-inspired music (Rich Batsford), Christian music (St. Mary’s Schola) and Muslim music (A’ashiq Al Rasul). A further concert in 2010 at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre saw the same collaboration. [6][7] They are also to sing Choral Evensong at Derby Cathedral in September 2010 [8] with a capella music including Parry's My Soul There is a Country, Gibbon's Short Service and Aichinger's Factus Est Repente. This year they did a successful residential at St Alban's Cathedral.
The church possesses an organ dating from 1887 by Henry Jones. It was overhauled in 1996 by Trevor Tipple of Worcester. A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.
The tower contains eight steel bells, originally hung at St Marie's, Sheffield (now the Roman Catholic Cathedral), where they were replaced by traditional bells after only 12 years of service because of the dreadful noise they made. The steel bells were sold to a local Moseley businessman who presented them to St Mary's in 1874. [10]
There is currently fundraising to replace the current bells with a new peal of 10 traditional bells at a cost of £140,000.[11]
St. Mary's contains the family vaults of the Holmes family, which includes Edward Holmes, Birmingham architect.