Christmas Eve and Day services at York Minster

Dec _24Minster

York Minster :

Mon 24 & Tue 25 Dec :

Various Times :

Free

 

Experience Christmas Eve and Day at York Minster with our traditional services.

Christmas Eve – Monday 24 December

12noon: Crib Service – Traditional and popular family service.

4pm: Nine Lessons and Carols (doors 3pm please arrive in good time)

11.30pm: First Eucharist of Christmas:

Christmas Day – Tuesday 25 December

8am: Holy Communion

10am: Sung Eucharist of Christmas Day (doors 9.15am)

11.45am: Christmas Day Choral Matins

4pm: Christmas Day Choral Evensong

All services are free and un- ticketed. All Advent & Christmas at YorkMinster.org/Whats-On

What’s on in York: Chapter House Choir

Formed in 1965 to raise funds for the York Minster Appeal, the Chapter House Choir continues to build on its reputation as one of the North of England’s finest amateur chamber choirs, under the leadership of musical director Benjamin Morris.

This concert completes a series on the theme of exile, reconciliation and peace.  The concert marks three significant 100-year anniversaries:

  • Hubert Parry’s death,
  • The granting of women’s suffrage and later the right for women to be elected to parliament,
  • The forthcoming 100th anniversary on 11/11/18 of the armistice in the First World War.

The programme includes several of Parry’s masterful Songs of Farewell, C V Stanford’s virtuosic 8-part MagnificatA short Requiem by Walford Davies and the BBC Radio 3 commissioned work, The Pankhurst Anthem – words and music by Helen and Lucy Pankhurst – for which the Chapter House Choir will be joined by the talented Chapter House Youth Choir

Tickets – £15 & £13.50 (concessions), Students & under 18s £5 are available to patrons of the Chapter House Choir in advance of the general release on 7 September.  For details on how to become a patron, please see here

What’s on in York: York Minster Stone Carving Festival 2018

Join stone masons from all over Europe for the fantastic #StoneFest18

17-19 Aug 18

09.30am

FREE

Stonemasons and carvers from across the UK and Europe showcase their skills during a weekend- long celebration of the ancient craft

An international Stone Carving Festival, celebrating the ancient craft and showcasing the skills of stonemasons and carvers from across the UK and Europe, will take place in Dean’s Park this summer.

The festival will see the park transformed into a tented village with the Mason’s Marquee forming the centre-piece and hub for expert craftspeople to carve designs based on the theme ‘All creatures great and small’.

Festival-goers will be able to see world-class stonemasons and carvers at work, try their hand at stone carving and enjoy food and drink supplied by some of York’s finest producers. Music will be provided by York’s community of buskers and a range of craft based activities will also be available for children and families.

The event will close on Sunday 19 August with a stone auction at 3.30pm, giving visitors the chance to bid for some of the newly carved stone. Funds raised from the auction will be reinvested in caring for the cathedral.

The festival runs from 8am to 6pm on Saturday 18 August and from 8am to 5pm on Sunday 19 August.

The York Minster Stone Carving Festival runs for four days and includes a Stoneyard Open Day on Friday 17 August.

What’s on in York: Heart of Yorkshire Festival

MinsterYork Minster 

& Deans Park

4th Jul – 2nd Sep

9:00am – 10:00pm

Various Prices

Workshops, craft activities, bars and a cinema will take over Dean’s Park this summer for a very special festival hosted by York Minster.

There are activities for all ages and you are warmly invited to pop along to take part or to simply enjoy the space as always.

See YorkMinster.org for all up coming events.

Please download the brochure here.

What’s on in York: The rediscovery of a medieval master-piece – John Thornton’s Great East Window

East Window

York Explore Library :

Thu 31 May :

6.30pm – 7.45pm :

£5

Join Sarah Brown, Director and Chief Executive of the York Glaziers Trust as she talks about the conservation of York Minster’s Great East Window

The conservation of York Minster’s Great East Window of 1405-8 between 2011 and 2017 has been not only one of Europe’s most ambitious conservation projects, but also an opportunity to explore one of Europe’s greatest medieval masterpieces. The Great East Window has been described as ‘England’ Sistine chapel of stained glass’, and this presentation will examine these claims, while revealing the work of the conservators who have safeguarded its future.

Sarah Brown is a national expert on medieval ecclesiastical architecture, stained glass history and conservation, and is the author of many books and articles in the field. She is president of the British Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi and is the General Secretary of the International Scientific Committee for the Conservation of Stained Glass. Sarah works as a Senior Lecturer specialising in stained glass, its history and conservation within the History of Art Department at the University of York, and has since 2008 also been Director and Chief Executive of the York Glaziers Trust, responsible for the care of the stained glass of York Minster.

To book tickets please click here.

York Minster plans changes to the Precinct

Pedestrianisation of Duncombe Place back on the agenda

York Minster is consulting on plans for the area surrounding the Cathedral. 

The Minster authorities are preparing a masterplan to explore how the Precinct could evolve in the future to meet the changing needs of its community and visitors. The Minster Chapter recognise that it is a sensitive and complex area of the City and its future care must be planned for carefully.

The intention is that the masterplan will be adopted as part of the City’s planning policy. It will provide the Minster with a clear strategy for the next twenty years and will be used to secure funding for individual projects.

The Minster is working with the City of York Council, Historic England, a wide range of stakeholders and the community to get the best plan in place. It is at a very early stage. An exhibition in Deans Park explains what they hope to achieve through the masterplan process.

Residents and visitors are being invited to give their ideas, suggestions and thoughts.

You can download the full masterplanning PDF here

Your can take the online survey and provide feedback here

or if you prefer, print the survey here and send back in via post to Masterplanning, Church House, 10-14 Ogleforth, YO1 7JN

The consultation will run until midnight on Saturday 30 June.

This is a welcome initiative from the custodians of York’s best known landmark.

The City can’t stand still and some proposals – including the pedestrianisation and paving of Duncombe Place – are long overdue.

However, the devil (him again) will be in the detail and not everyone will share the Chapters view that Deans Park should be a more lively place. An “oasis of calm” in a busy world might get more votes!

Finding funding for the public infrastructure works is likely to be a particular challenge 

Still there is room for improvement and most would be delighted if the historic St Williams College building was brought back into use. 

What’s on in York: The Ebor Singers with Songs of Remembrance at York Minster

 19 May 18

19:30

From £5.00

BOOK TICKETS

Couperin: Troisieme Lecon de mecredi saint

Charpentier: Messe de Morts

Purcell: Funeral Sentences

Expressive works by seventeenth and eighteenth century composers are the focus of this concert. To celebrate the 350th anniversary of Francois Couperin’s birth, we include the third of his Lecons de Tenebres, which entertained and moved when they were first heard in Holy Week 1714, with the musical language matching the poignancy of the text and the drama of the liturgy.

Both written in the 1670s, Charpentier’s Messe de Morts (commemorating various obsequies for his patrons the Guise family) and Purcell’s Funeral Sentences (possibly written following the death of his teacher Matthew Locke in 1677), demonstrate the highly expressive influence of Italian music.

Tickets available here or on the night.

For more information please call 01904 557200.

Dean of York Minster to become Bishop of Bristol

Work on East end of Minster completed

The Very Reverend Viv Faull the Dean of York Minster is to take up an appointment as the Bishop of Bristol.

Viv Faull has made a major contribution to the  regeneration of the Minster during the last 6 years. Financially the Cathedral is more secure, major projects like the restoration of the Great East Window have been completed and congregation numbers have increased.

She was the first woman Dean in York’s history and will become one of only a few female Bishops in the country.

We wish her well in her new role.

The Press release from 10 Downing Street is reproduced below.

BISHOP OF BRISTOL

The Queen has approved the nomination of the Very Reverend Vivienne Frances Faull, MA, Dean of York, in the diocese of York, for election as Bishop of Bristol in succession to the Right Reverend Michael Arthur Hill, on his resignation on the 30th September 2017.       

 Background  

Vivienne Faull

The Very Reverend Vivienne Faull, (aged 62) studied at the Queen’s School, Chester and Saint Hilda’s College, Oxford. After teaching with the Church Mission Society in North India and youth work at Shrewsbury House, Everton, she trained for ministry in Nottingham. She then moved to the Liverpool diocese serving as a Deaconess from 1982 to 1985. She was Chaplain, Fellow and honorary Fellow at Clare College Cambridge and was made Deacon in the Diocese of Ely in 1987. She began cathedral ministry in 1990 as Chaplain at Gloucester Cathedral where she was ordained in 1994. She became Canon Pastor, and later Vice Provost at Coventry Cathedral in 1994. In 2000, she became the first woman to lead a Church of England cathedral when she was appointed Provost of Leicester becoming Dean of Leicester later that year.

She was appointed to her current post as Dean of York in 2012, overseeing the completion of a complex £20 million Heritage Lottery Fund project to restore York Minster’s Great East Window. Her interest in the sustainable regeneration of communities led to her nomination as chair of the City of York Council’s community forum for the York Central project – the largest brown field mixed development site in the north of England.  

She was chair of the Association of English Cathedrals (the cathedrals’ representative body) from 2009 to 2015 and is currently chair of the Deans’ conference. She is Vice Chair of the Archbishops’ Council Cathedrals Working Group which has reviewed the governance and finance of English Anglican cathedrals. She is a governor of York St John University and holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Chester, Gloucester and York.

Vivienne is married to Michael, a consultant physician. Together they have walked a third of the ancient pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome and travelled to Canada to canoe the Turner Lakes and explore the Haida Gwaii islands by sailing boat.

What’s on in York: Organ series 2018 at York Minster

Celebrate the Cathedrals magnificent organ ahead of its major restoration in autumn 2018.

A series of outstanding concerts and recitals with pieces brought to life by the Minster’s own world-renowned musicians.

Monday 7 May – 1.10pm
Bank Holiday Monday recital
Jeremy Lloyd will perform an informal Organ Promanade in the Nave as part of regular admission to the Minster.

Sunday 13 May – 5.15pm
Olivier Messiaen’s L’ascension

Saturday 25 August – 7.00pm
Summer organs gala concert

J S Bach on Sundays

Each Sunday between January and July, before the 10am service.