Services

Sunday	Solemn Mass 11.00; Evening Prayer 15.00 (sometimes replaced by diocesan or special service)
Weekdays	Choral Mass 17.15 Mon (Girls' Choir) & Tue (Boys' Choir alternates with Girls' Choir); Choral Evening Prayer 17.45 Wed (Girls' Choir), Thu & Fri (Cathedral Choir)

Service Sheet www.liverpoolmetrocathedral.org.uk/music at the cathedral/order of services and music

Facilities

Entrance: Admission free; a donation of £2.50 is invited towards upkeep. Admission to Lutyens Crypt & Treasury 10.00-16.00 (Monday - Saturday) by ticket £3.00, family ticket £8.00 from Golden Book Office or Gift Shop

Disabled: Via car park entrance and lift or by garden ramp

Photography: Permitted but not during services. No photography in Lutyens Crypt

Guided tours: Guides are usually on duty; guided tours may be booked in advance via Cathedral Office

Refectory: 'The Piazza' at foot of main steps; open every day 10.00-17.00. Parties may book in advance 0151 707 3536

Shop: At foot of main approach steps; open Mon-Sat 10.00-1600; Sunday 11.00-16.00; also box office for cathedral concerts 0151 0707 3525

Toilet facilities: In lower main porch & in Visitor Centre

Website: www.liverpoolmetrocathedral.org.uk

E-mail address: enquiries@metcathedral.org.uk

Telephone
General enquiries 0151 709 9222
Music office 0151 708 7283

Music

Director of Music
Timothy Noon (since 2007)
Former Directors include Christopher Symons (1960-66); Philip Duffy (1966-96); Mervyn Cousins (1997-2003); Keith Orrell (2004); Terence Duffy (2004-2007)

Choir
The Cathedral Choir was founded in 1960 by Christopher Symons and consists of about 24 boy Choristers and 14 Lay Clerks and Choral Scholars.  The Choristers are chosen by audition and are all educated at Runnymede - St Edward's School & St Edward's College, the Cathedral´s Choir Schools.   A Girls' Choir was set up towards the end of 2008, with the Choristers all pupils at St Edward's College.   There is also the Cathedral Consort which sings on occasions when the Choristers are not available and consists of the gentlemen of the Cathedral Choir and 6–8 adult female singers.    The Choir celebrates its 50th birthday on the Titular Feast of Christ the King on 21 November. It first performed on that feast day in 1960 under the direction of Christopher Symons

Organ

The Cathedral Organ was built by J W Walker & Sons, in 1967 and inaugurated at the opening service on 14 May 1967.  It has four manuals, 88 speaking stops (108 in all) and 4565 pipes. The action is electro-pneumatic and the console is situated at the nave level. Built as an integral part of the new Cathedral, the architect Sir Fredrick Gibberd saw the casework as part of his brief and inspired by the innovative use of the pipes at Coventry Cathedral and the Royal Festival Hall so arranged the shiny zinc pipes and brass trumpets en chamade to contrast strikingly with the concrete pillars which flank it.

The box organ was built by Kenneth Tickell in 1992.  It has three stops and is regularly used for services in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel as well as a continuo instrument for choral services and concerts.

The Crypt Chapel houses an organ originally built by Rushworths in 1931 and transferred from the redundant Church of St Patrick, Widnes in 1999. It has two manuals with tracker action.

  http://www.liverpoolmetrocathedral.org.uk/music/cathedralorgans.html

 

Organ specification npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N00086

Cathedral

Dean
The Revd Canon Anthony O'Brien (since 2006)

Archbishop & Metropolitan
The Most Revd Patrick Kelly (since 1997)

Building

In 1930 Sir Edward Lutyens (1869-1944) was commissioned to provide a design which would be an appropriate response to the Gilbert Scott designed Neo-gothic Anglican cathedral then emerging at the other end of Hope Street.  Lutyens' design would have created a massive classical/Byzantine structure that would have become the second-largest church in the world.  The foundation stone for the new building was laid on 5 June 1933, but financial restrictions caused this plan to be abandoned in 1958 after construction of the crypt. The new cathedral, designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd, and consecrated in 1967, was built on the site adjacent to the crypt. Its circular plan was conceived as a response to the Second Vatican Council's requirements for a greater participation of the lay faithful in the sacred liturgy.  The cathedral stands on the site of the Liverpool Workhouse, on Mount Pleasant.  Facing it at the opposite end of Hope Street is the Cathedral Church of Christ in Liverpool, the city's Anglican cathedral.  Ironically, Lutyens was an Anglican, while the architect of the Anglican cathedral, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, was a Catholic.