Peter Back

Following almost three decades as Head of Music in a secondary school in Surrey, I was asked to become the in-house writer and speaker on music matters for the Brighton Philharmonic Society, a position I held until shortly before moving to Ely in 2009.

Observing, at close hand, the inner workings of a professional orchestra demonstrates what real collaboration can achieve. Such collaboration was necessary when running a school music department, especially when mounting ambitious musical productions. The support of colleagues and parents, along with practical help and advice from talented individuals and organisations within the community all played a part.

I’m very much a team player, and working as a team with a common purpose is what it means to be a FoEC Council Member. In acquainting and aligning ourselves with the mission and aims of the Cathedral, it is not difficult to see what an important role we can play in assisting the Cathedral in those aims. 

Since becoming a Council Member I have been a member of a sub-committee to help develop our policy on giving, and during my short tenure as Chair of Council helped negotiate an evolving relationship with the Cathedral authorities. It is important to evolve in order to progress, and with our new Friends’ Officer at the helm we can be assured of doing so.

As Council Members we are Trustees of our charity. All requests for funding come directly from the Cathedral Chapter. It is the responsibility of the Trustees to examine those requests carefully, to ask questions, to probe and ensure that the trust our many Friends put in us is well founded.

[My article about the Ely Service, a music commission to mark the 1350th anniversary of the founding of St Etheldreda’s monastery in AD 673, is available in the Friends’ Documentation pages of this site.]