INTERVIEW: Victoria Johnson

Victoria Johnson, Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge, and previously Precentor of York Minster, discusses her new book On Voice …

 

Can you tell us about the origins of your new book, On Voice?

I have always been fascinated by the human voice, not least as my own speaking voice and singing voice have been a vital part of my life and work. I think the voice conveys so much about us, our emotions, our intentions, our heart. Our voice is very much part of who we are. I’m amazed by the both the tenderness and power of the voice to communicate, and in my own life, its daily work in communicating the sacred. I’m conscious that in my work my voice carries the prayers of others, it is carrying the words of scripture, it is carrying the most beautiful music. In my ministry my voice has carried grief, consolation, and joy, and it has expressed love given and received.  So, I wanted to explore the voice through speech, song and silence, and this exploration naturally led me to explore the voice of God and how that is heard in our world today in a whole variety of contexts. I wanted to think about how God’s voice is represented in music and liturgy and in the life of the church, and how our voices, as people made in the image of God, represent something of the sound of the likeness of God.

You have just finished inhabiting the role of Precentor at York Minster: What role does a Precentor play within the Church and how did your experience as Precentor crystalise your thoughts on the voice - both human and divine?

A Precentor is a rather ancient kind of role in the church. The Precentor, which literally means ‘the one who sings first’, orchestrates worship. That word ‘orchestrate’ is a good word because a Precentor facilitates, directs, guides, and leads the worship of the church usually in the context of a cathedral, and often acts as a cantor. You could say they enable others to worship and make music to the glory of God. The role in York reaches back nearly a thousand years. In the service of Choral Evensong, the Precentor breaks open worship by singing these words: O Lord, open thou our lips, and the choir respond: and our mouth shall shew forth thy praise. Our voice encourages other voices to pray. This is a huge privilege and in this role my own thoughts and experiences of voice became clearer and much more expansive. I wanted to explore more deeply the call of humanity to ‘shew forth praise’.

How can song bring us closer to God?

As a child I sang in the church choir and I would say this is the place where my vocation to become a priest was first kindled, in the choir stalls. As a singer, I am very aware that singing somehow brings me closer to God and in my case, this Anglican soundscape has shaped the way I used my voice. There is some dispute whether St Augustine actually said ‘to sing is to pray twice’, but for me that feels true. Singing seems to focus my thoughts and my prayers and there is nothing more fulfilling than to make beautiful music to the glory of God in spaces set aside for that purpose. However, I have come to see singing both as a means of praise and also as a metaphor for the life of faith and the vocation of the church. I believe it is our human vocation to offer praise to God. The Westminster Catechism states that “Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." For me, glorifying God and enjoying God are both about offering praise and worship, and then letting that word and that song become embedded in our hearts and shown forth in our lives. Worship changes us and shapes us, and we can ‘sing’ God’s glory through our attentiveness to justice and mercy in the world around us and become more aware of those who have no voice, or those whose voices have been silenced.

What role does silence play in relation to sound in our spiritual lives? Do we need one more than the other?

I think silence is part of sound, and silence has a music of its own.  I think as human beings we are often very noisy creatures and there is not enough space in our world for silence. I think people are often scared of silence, but it is often in that sheer silence, where God’s voice is heard. But without silence, we cannot truly listen to one another and neither can we hear God. Every musician knows that the silence between the notes on the stave is just as important as the notes themselves when making music. I always remember those words from Ecclesiastes- there is a time to keep silence and a time to speak, or indeed sing. My feeling is that in God’s sound world, silence will always lead us to song or as John Donne said in his wonderful poem - towards one equal music in the ranges of eternity.

How should readers approach On Voice and what do you hope they will take away from your book?

I hope that readers will approach On Voice as an exploration and an adventure. If you have an idea, where can it take you? For me the idea of the voice through speech, song and silence has taken me to incredible places; from Genesis to Revelation, from Cathedral Choirs to Artificial intelligence, from birdsong to bells, from castrati to football chanting. I have tried to write a book about the soundscape of faith and I hope it is a book of hope which communicates something of the joy of being called to be creatures of praise who have been given a unique voice. I know that everyone will have a different soundscape of faith, there will be different resonances in each of our voices which makes us who we are, but I would encourage readers to consider their own voice and what it carries, because I believe every voice has a story and every voice has a vocation.

 

Victoria Johnson is the new Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge, and was previously Precentor of York Minster, the first woman to inhabit that role in a history which reaches back over a thousand years.

On Voice: Speech, Song and Silence, Human and Divine is available now in paperback, priced £14.99.