Announcement – appointments to the College of Canons

The Bishop of Hereford is pleased to make the following appointments to the College of Canons at Hereford Cathedral:-

 

To a Lay Canonry for a period of five years:

 

Geraint Bowen, Director of Music at Hereford Cathedral since 2001

Geraint is known and acclaimed  throughout the world of cathedral music and far beyond. During his time as Director of Music, Geraint has sustained and developed our cathedral music, instating an annual performance of one of the Bach Passions, a biennial performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and an annual orchestral Eucharist. He has presided over a prestigious series of recordings, broadcasts and overseas tours with the cathedral choir and is widely respected as an artistic director of the Three Choirs Festival, of which he has been lead director for six Hereford festivals. Above all, Geraint is honoured for his consistent care and devotion to the daily offering of worship in the cathedral and for the vocation which inspires all his work.

 

Geraint succeeds Edward Harley, who has served as a lay canon for almost five years and has recently been appointed as Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Herefordshire. Edward has been made a lay canon emeritus by the Bishop.

 

To a Lay Canonry for a period of three years, renewable to a total of nine years, with membership of the Cathedral Chapter

 

Dr Duncan Jones

Duncan has had a distinguished career in education, first teaching in Cornwall,  then occupying headships in Worcester, Dudley and finally in Malvern. He is a statutory inspector of Anglican and Methodist schools in the dioceses of Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, Oxford and Birmingham and also SIAMS Manager for the dioceses of Hereford and Worcester, scheduling inspections, delivering training and quality assurance. He has wide experience in all aspects of Safeguarding and will bring these skills as a member of the Cathedral Chapter. Duncan will work alongside Canon Barbara Gratton, who is currently Safeguarding Lead on Chapter, and will ultimately succeed her, ensuring a smooth handover of this vital part of our ministry.

 

To a prebendal stall (Gorwall)

 

The Reverend Stephanie Fountain 

Stephanie trained at Westcott House, Cambridge, and has served in the dioceses of Southwark and Lincoln before coming to our diocese in 2010. She is incumbent of the Ridgeway Benefice  and Rural Dean of Clun Forest as well as assistant archdeacon in the Ludlow archdeaconry. Stephanie succeeds Prebendary Jill Talbot-Ponsonby, whom the Bishop has made a prebendary emerita.

 

The two new lay canons and prebendary will be collated by the Bishop and installed by the Dean at Evensong on Friday 2 October at 5.30pm – the Feast of St Thomas of Hereford. During the service, Prebendary Nicholas Lowton will be placed in the stall de Putson Minore following his collation earlier this year, and the Bishop will also re-licence Mike Bourke, Michael Westall and David Thomson as assistant Bishops of Hereford.

 

Michael Tavinor

Dean of Hereford