Presentation of unpublished chants and music books

Monday May 9th 2016

Mrs Heather Grindle and Mrs Rosemary Davison with Dean John Mann, St Anne’s Master of the Choristers David Stevens and Cathedral Organist Ian Barber.

A collection of unpublished chants by the late Dr Harry Grindle is to be digitised and made available at St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast.

Harry was a former organist at St Anne’s and founder of the Priory Singers.

Mrs Heather Grindle visited the Cathedral to meet the Dean of Belfast the Very Rev John Mann, Master of Choristers David Stevens and Organist Ian Barber to make the special donation to St Anne’s of Harry’s unpublished chants.

The Cathedral already uses some of Harry’s chants, as do other choirs, but there are more that are at the moment inaccessible. These will now be digitised (probably over the course of the summer) and made available through the Cathedral for free access. It is Heather’s particular request that there be no restriction on their use.

Heather has already presented a number of Harry’s books which are currently in the Cathedral archive.

St Anne’s is also receiving Donald Davison’s music books, the gift of Mrs Rosemary Davison, who also came to see visit with Debbie her daughter.

Donald, who died in 2013, was a member of Connor Diocesan Council and the organist at St John’s Parish, Malone for 36 years. He was awarded an MBE for services to Music in 2007.

The Grindle/Davison collection of music-related books is ultimately to be treated as one, and will have a special place in the Cathedral Library, where again they may be consulted by anyone.

A further gift is that of Donald Davison’s organ music. This too will be catalogued and made available to organists, especially those learning the organ.

A system for this to work effectively has yet to be devised, but the intent is that the music may be borrowed by organ scholars for extended periods of time.