Westminster Cathedral’s music administrator, Madeline Smith, has stepped down, citing a row over the future of the choir school in her resignation letter.
In the letter, which was circulated by the journalist Ysenda Maxtone Graham, Ms Smith describes the music department’s position as “untenable”, alleging a lack of support from the cathedral hierarchy and the choir school.
She said that the recent decision to move the school to weekly boarding had contributed to the choir’s “slow decline”, and that the choir lost three choristers during lockdown and was now “in a worrying state”.
“I thus reluctantly leave this wonderful and unique place with an extremely heavy heart, and no small amount of depression and anxiety, caused by the frightening and toxic atmosphere upheld by the management of the school and tacitly enabled by the cathedral hierarchy through its refusal to recognise the problem, intervene and mediate to find a workable solution between its employees,” she wrote.
A spokesperson for the Diocese of Westminster said: “This letter, circulated by a former employee, is replete with inaccurate and baseless claims, which are personal attacks on certain individuals. It would appear that this employee is acting from a personal grudge.
“Westminster Cathedral Choir School and Westminster Cathedral, with its music department, are working closely together on the challenges of these difficult Covid-19 circumstances to secure the future of sacred music in the cathedral.”
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