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None of it was easy, nor was it always fun. The music could be incredibly difficult, and the boys, who ranged in age from seven to 14, were hardly musical prodigies. Like me, most of them had only basic experience. I recall thrown hymn books and cash fines for mistakes and misbehaviour, and the occasional Sunday morning trainwreck when a piece would nearly fall apart.

Despite this, at our best we could pull off works like Bach’s St. John Passion and Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, music that would challenge even the best adult professional choirs. When we were good, we were better than anyone. And when we were not so good, we shrugged it off and moved on – because it was our job.

In the end, St. Simon’s had a profound effect on many of the boys who sang there. Some, like me, continue to sing professionally. It wasn’t until later that we realized our experience there was unique. “Pretty much everywhere else in life, it’s ‘you’re the kid, we’re the adults,'” recalls John Cowling, who earned the $30 fee for getting me to join the choir.

“At St. Simon’s, obviously we were still treated to some degree as kids. But you were getting paid, you had a uniform, you had to get your gear on and go. We weren’t being coddled, we weren’t learning things by rote, we were performing all the same material as adults, which was hard, and we were producing a lot of it.”

We were motivated to perform by the way we were treated – not as aspiring student musicians, or cute kids with angelic voices, but as fully capable professionals.