Honouring the late Father Stephen Ortiger

A major new choral work is set to receive its world premiere in a memorial concert honouring the late Father Stephen Ortiger.

Composed by Julian Gairdner, a former pupil at Worth School, Abbatial Requiem will be performed by London-based choir Vox Cordis alongside Worthian singers at 7.15pm on Sunday, November 22 at Worth Abbey near Turners Hill, West Sussex.

The event serves as a musical memorial to Fr Stephen Ortiger (Abbot of Worth Abbey 1994-2002) and as a fundraiser for both a bursary in his name and the Catholic Diocese of Arundel & Brighton’s annual pilgrimage to Lourdes.

For Julian, the concert represents the completion of a deeply personal, lifelong musical circle having first envisioned writing a Requiem Mass while a student at Worth School in the 1980s. While the idea remained a distant dream for decades, the death of Father Stephen in January 2024 – his former headmaster – proved to be the catalyst.

Inspired by the funeral held for Father Stephen in February 2024, Julian set to work to bring his schoolboy ambition to life.

He said: “Decades ago, I wrote a short musical phrase at school that I imagined would open my Requiem if I ever wrote one. I have remembered it all these years later and finally given it air in this piece.”

The Abbatial Requiem is written for a four-part choir, organ, two trumpets, cello, timpani, glockenspiel and a baritone soloist. While it broadly follows the customary Latin setting inspired by the concise styles of Fauré and Duruflé, Julian has introduced deeply personal deviations from the norm – most notably, the third movement, Stephen’s Prayer, features an adaptation of an email that Father Stephen sent to his friends just weeks before his death. The work unusually incorporates Salve Regina and concludes with a rare, triumphant Gloria to mirror the opening Kyrie. It also features an acapella movement evoking Gregorian chant.

Julian said: “I hope Fr Stephen would be happy with the score. For me it brings back happy memories of rather unsuccessfully trying to teach him the piano in the Old Library next to his study when I was practising for my Grade 8 exam!”

The concert programme also includes anthems by Parry and Elgar.

The concert will be on Sunday, November 22 at 7.15pm at Worth Abbey, Turners Hill, West Sussex, RH10 4SB. Tickets are £16.50 to include a drink from tinyurl.com/abbatial-requiem

The net proceeds will go to The Fr Stephen Ortiger Bursary Fund and the Diocese of Arundel & Brighton Lourdes Pilgrimage

Father Stephen was the third Abbot of Worth (1994-2002) and a former headmaster of Worth School. He was well-known within the Catholic Diocese of Arundel & Brighton. Educated at Downside in Somerset (the founding abbey of Worth Abbey) and Emmanual College, Cambridge, he was later active in the university’s chaplaincy and also became titular Abbot of St Edmund’s Abbey, Bury St Edmunds. He died on January 27 2024.

Julian Gairdner is aged 55, a former pupil of Worth School 1981-89. Professionally, he works as a digital and data tech consultant in the agricultural sector. As a composer, his current projects include the Abbatial Requiem and an upcoming musical, Dreaming In Colour, based on the life of Josephine Baker.