New Director of Music at Metropolitan Cathedral, Liverpool

Cathedral choir

Following the recent auditions and interviews, Canon Anthony O'Brien, the Dean of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Liverpool, has announced that Mr Christopher McElroy has been appointed as the Director of Music. He will take up the position in January 2012 in succession to Mr Timothy Noon who has taken up a similar position at Auckland Cathedral, New Zealand.

The Cathedral has an international reputation for its liturgy and music and Mr McElroy will work to sustain this. Although young by cathedral standards, the Cathedral Choir of men and boys was founded in 1960 and celebrated its 50th birthday in November 2010. The Girls' Choir was set up in 2008. The Cathedral Choir has toured throughout Europe, as well as Canada and the USA and has regularly broadcast on radio and TV. The Girls' Choir sang the BBC Radio 4 Sunday Morning Service for the first time at Easter, 2011.

Christopher McElroy was born in Liverpool and was educated at the Blue Coat School. He went on to graduate as Bachelor of Music from Huddersfield University, Master of Arts from Liverpool University and is now completing his PhD thesis at Liverpool Hope University. He was Organ Scholar at Wakefield and Leeds Cathedrals as well as the Metropolitan Cathedral, so is familiar with the tradition in Liverpool.

After spending three years a Director of Music at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Montclair, New Jersey in the USA he returned to England to take up the post of Assistant Diocesan Director of Music at Leeds Cathedral in 2004, responsible for the setting up and direction of the Leeds Diocesan Schools' Singing Programme, the largest of its kind in this country, which provides musical education and the establishment of choirs in 50 different venues, involving over 2,000 children on a weekly basis.

Mr McElroy is married and has one son. He said: "I am delighted to be returning to my home city and very excited at the prospect of taking over the direction of the excellent Music Department at the Metropolitan Cathedral, of which I have very fond memories from my days there as Organ Scholar. Although the appointment may be daunting it offers the opportunity for me to seek to raise the musical standards even higher and I look forward to working with the Dean and his staff as well as the members of the music staff, the boy and girl choristers and the lay clerks."