St. Thomas More Group

Bio

The composers in the St. Thomas More Group include many of the leading figures in England today: a professor of music, a cathedral music director, two diocesan music directors and the assistant secretary of the Bishops' Liturgy Committees. An outgrowth of the former St. Thomas More Center for Pastoral Liturgy in England, the group currently has the following members: Stephen Dean, Peter Jones, Peter McGrail, Anne Quigley, Bill Tamblyn and James Walsh.

Former members include: Bernadette Farrell, Paul Inwood and Christopher Walker.

St. Thomas More Group History
The St. Thomas More Center in North London was a parish-based study center founded in 1969. Although it belonged to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster, it became a focus for musicians throughout Britain and even beyond.

In the mid-1980s, the music of a number of composers whose work had been distributed and promoted by the Center began to become known in the U.S. Leading publisher OCP expressed interest, leading to the appearance of a series of collections and octavo editions.

The OCP collections appeared under the general heading of "Music of the St. Thomas More Center," even though only two of the composers, Paul Inwood and Stephen Dean, were ever on the staff of the Center. In 1991, when the agreement with OCP was due for renewal, the composers decided to run their own affairs and since that time the name has been The St. Thomas More Group.

Three composers, Christopher Walker, Bernadette Farrell and Paul Inwood, have since left the group but retain contacts with each other, and the corpus of music under the general "St. Thomas More" name remains. The group's new collection, Praise Be to Christ, re-united some of the original members and included some new names.

The St. Thomas More Center, meanwhile, left its parish base and became simply a distributor and bookseller. For economic reasons, the Diocese of Westminster decided to close the Center in 1995. Though this is sad, the seeds it has sown will continue to germinate and flower. The St. Thomas More Group may become more fluid, and return to the earlier idea of acting as a focus for new composers, especially young ones, whose work is worthy of promotion.