Liturgical and Music Tradition
'Of all the sounds of which human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, are capable, voice is the most privileged and fundamental'
Celebrating a diversity of music traditions, the school's Music Department and Religious Education Department collaborate throughout the year to use music to awaken, to nourish and to expresses the spirit. Music also serves as a vehicle for community building, character formation and outreach across the Diocese.
Gunnersbury's commitment to choral music is strong and the liturgy is supported by our Chamber Choir. In recent years there have been invitations to perform at the annual Mass for the Guild of St Stephen at Westminster Cathedral, at the Catholic Children's Society's annual Benefactors' Mass at the beautifully historic 13th-century building of St Etheldreda's on Ely Place in Holborn and the final Centenary Mass for the Catenian Association at Westminster Cathedral.
A long-standing tradition is the Choir singing at Sunday morning Mass in parishes across Westminster and Southwark Dioceses, including Our Lady of Sorrows and St Bridget in Isleworth, Saints Peter and Paul in Northfields, St Anselm's in Southall, St George's in Sudbury and St John Fisher in Perivale. Reverend Father Philip Baptiste, himself an old boy of Gunnersbury, and formerly of St Francis de Sales in Hampton Hill, describes the boys' singing 'bringing the Holy Mass alive for parishioners.’