What The Destruction Of A Beloved NYC Choir School Signifies

It is hardly a novel observation that the Episcopal Church is in freefall — its once-immense cultural influence reduced to a mere whisper, its ancient liturgies now little more than quaint relics in a world that has long ceased to value the transcendent.

The leadership, having spent decades more preoccupied with virtue-signaling on fashionable social justice causes, identity politics, and the moral imperative of appeasing the ever-changing winds of political correctness, now finds itself on the brink of irrelevance. It is as though the church decided to exchange its eternal spiritual heritage for the transient concerns of modernity, only to discover, with a bemused shrug, that the transaction has rendered it hollow.

The ecclesiastical train wreck, long in the making, may be regarded as inevitable, but even in this context, St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue’s decision to dismantle its eponymous choir school — a treasure that has stood as the pinnacle of Anglican choral excellence for over 100 years — is nothing short of an affront to the senses. Were the Episcopal Church a sinking ship, St. Thomas might be imagined as its last remaining lifeboat — staunch, dignified, and afloat in a sea of mediocrity. Yet, in its infinite wisdom, the church is now preparing to hurl that lifeboat overboard in favor of something less majestic. If this is what the “preservation” of an institution looks like, perhaps we should welcome a shipwreck. 

St. Thomas Church, founded in 1823, was once the epitome of ecclesiastical grandeur in New York City, a sanctuary where the Anglican tradition flourished in all its solemnity and beauty. Its walls have resonated with some of the finest sacred music in the Western canon, and its pews were once filled with captains of industry, statesmen, artists, and patrons of the arts. To enter St. Thomas was to be drawn into an august world, an intersection of the sacred and the sublime, a place that radiated a sense of purpose and permanence that has all but vanished from modern life. 

This legacy owes much to the generosity of Charles Steele (1857-1939), a partner at J.P. Morgan and the choir school’s principal benefactor, who sought to uphold the highest standards of cultural and spiritual education. Through a series of endowments, Steele enabled the choir school to thrive as an institution of excellence, integrating faith, academics, and music to shape young men into torchbearers of Anglican tradition. That such an institution is now being gutted by a vestry seemingly bent on expediency over vision is a betrayal of Steele’s legacy and the ideals he sought to preserve.

Yet when I recently asked the wardens of the vestry, Gregory Zaffiro and Lloyd Stanford, what makes St. Thomas special, they could scarcely muster more than a flaccid litany of clichés, musing about the beauty of the place and the friendliness of the people. The mission statement’s reference to “the Anglican tradition and our unique choral heritage” seems to be a mere afterthought at best for the two lay leaders of the parish.

No mention of the choral heritage. No reverence for the institution’s towering liturgical contributions. No sense of duty toward a mission that extends beyond the merely pleasant. It is as if, for the vestry, St. Thomas is little more than a quaint meeting hall where Sunday’s sermon is an item on the social calendar, rather than a venerable institution where heaven meets earth in liturgy and song. 

In an era when few institutions even aspire to uphold such high values, St. Thomas has remained an emblem of continuity and purpose — until now. Under the Orwellian guise of “preservation,” the vestry has recently announced its intention to dismantle the choir school’s integrated academic model by “collaborating” with the Professional Children’s School (PCS), a secular institution with no liturgical foundation.

According to the plan, choristers will be shuttled across Manhattan for their academic studies, transforming the choir school into a hollowed-out boarding facility devoid of its academic program. Such doublespeak would be amusing if it weren’t so tragic; as Orwell noted, political language often serves to “make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” Here, the vestry’s language does precisely that, invoking “preservation” to mask the wholesale abandonment of the choir school’s raison d’être. 

The Absurdity of the Plan

Consider the practical absurdities underlying this farce. The choir school, since its founding in 1919 by Dr. T. Tertius Noble, has existed to preserve the Anglican choral tradition by offering a place where music, academics, and faith are integrated into a seamless whole, ensuring that boys are not only trained in song but are nurtured in character and intellect. Yet the vestry’s decision will transform it into a hollow shell, a skeletal entity where boys may sing but cannot study.

Meanwhile, the rector himself, Carl Turner, lives in a rectory purchased in 2018 for close to $8 million — a substantial asset that, were it sold and the proceeds reinvested, could provide the choir school with a stream of funding to offset operating costs. Is there any compelling reason why the rector himself could not move into one of the vacant choir school apartments, should the finances truly be as dire as claimed? Apparently, the idea of stepping down to a more humble living space is far less palatable to him than the wholesale destruction of a century-old institution that has long been the jewel of the Anglican choral tradition on this side of the Atlantic. 

Fiscal Hypocrisy and Moral Cowardice

This disingenuous handling extends beyond fiscal hypocrisy to outright obfuscation. Nowhere in vestry communications do we find specifics on how much the PCS model will actually save compared to a scaled-back “retain” model. When I inquired with the chief advancement officer, Bruce Smith, I was told the decision wasn’t driven “strictly” by finances but by a lack of “appetite” for a scaled-down school. So is it about finances or not? The vestry vacillates between fiscal alarmism and vague enthusiasm for “collaboration,” revealing either a profound lack of transparency or a fundamental misunderstanding of their own priorities.

The indignities do not end here. In a move that would be laughable were it not so brazen, the vestry has appointed none other than the rector’s wife as “Interim Director of Transition” — a unilateral decision made without consultation from those who are actually involved in the day-to-day operations of the choir school. This is not governance; this is a coup — an orchestrated reshaping of the institution under euphemistic language and nepotistic appointments.

Outpost of Tradition in a Culture of Flux 

St. Thomas Choir School has long represented a bastion of excellence, a place where beauty, faith, and intellectual rigor coexist in a harmonious and, yes, costly endeavor. It is no ordinary institution but a crucible where young boys are steeped in a tradition that is both a cultural treasure and a sacred obligation. Here, the boys are trained as torchbearers of a heritage that transcends the ordinary and schooled in the conviction that music is a portal to the divine. The choir school shapes not only voices but lives.

Moreover, St. Thomas Choir School is one of only three such institutions remaining in the world, alongside Westminster Abbey Choir School in London and Escolania de Montserrat in Barcelona. These three institutions, which uphold the tradition of choral education integrated with faith, are the last of their kind. The proposed model, one that divorces academics from the liturgical framework, not only betrays the school’s history but irrevocably dismantles a tradition that has endured for centuries. The loss of this model, once gone, cannot be recreated.

The choir school’s influence is felt in concentric circles. At its core, it forms young men who go on to excel in academic and personal pursuits, often matriculating to the nation’s most distinguished boarding schools. Beyond them, the entire St. Thomas parish, casual visitors, and an international audience of listeners are all enriched by the school’s work. To strip away the choir school’s academic component is to fracture this influence, diminishing a legacy that resonates far beyond Fifth Avenue.

Furthermore, St. Thomas Choir School occupies a unique place in the Anglican cosmos, the singular “major league” institution that sets the standard for choral music nationwide. Each year, choirmasters and organists flock to St. Thomas, eager to observe and emulate its methods. Such influence becomes all the more crucial in a world increasingly inhospitable to tradition. That this model — traditional, exclusive, unapologetically all-boys — could now be deemed anachronistic is precisely why it must be preserved. If we lose this vestige of permanence now, it will be gone forever. 

Expensive, But So Is Anything Worth Keeping 

Indeed, the choir school is costly. But what of true value is not? In a culture that prioritizes the disposable, some institutions must endure precisely because they transcend mere utility. To bemoan the choir school’s costs as if they were frivolous luxuries is to misunderstand its worth; the school’s expenses are not a waste but an investment in permanence.

Let us not forget that the church has recently funded a full organ replacement and extensive restoration of its stained-glass windows — surely consuming much of the $50 million it has suggested would be required to permanently shore up the choir school’s endowment. Meanwhile, seven clergy are maintained even as Sunday attendance steadily wanes. Here is a selective fiscal prudence if ever there was one. 

The Façade of Fiscal Responsibility 

We are told, in tones of utmost gravitas, that the choir school’s $4 million annual operating cost is an insurmountable burden, yet this figure is shrouded in ambiguity. Should the ledger be opened, one imagines it would reveal a financial landscape more malleable than the vestry suggests.

But instead of exploring creative solutions or inviting dialogue, the vestry has chosen the path of least resistance: cut out the heart, outsource the soul, and sanctimoniously declare the choir school “preserved.” This is not stewardship; it is fiscal cowardice masked in high-minded jargon. 

Adding a final twist of hypocrisy, the vestry insists on urgency in restructuring the choir school while failing to seriously consider selling other assets, such as the multimillion-dollar rectory. One is left to wonder: Is the urgency truly financial, or does it stem from a deeper lack of vision and resolve? After all, the vestry has admitted that finances were not the sole or even the primary motive; rather, it appears the vestry simply lacks the appetite to run a scaled-down version of the choir school. What a display of capitulation under the guise of leadership. 

A Call to Conscience 

The dismantling of the St. Thomas Choir School is not merely a governance decision; it is an act of cultural desecration. It is the tragedy of an institution surrendering to mediocrity and expediency, emblematic of the broader Episcopal Church’s retreat from meaning and purpose. This decision should resonate beyond Fifth Avenue, a clarion call for all who understand the necessity of preserving institutions that uphold faith, rigor, and beauty. 

In a broader Episcopal Church that has often surrendered to the tide of cultural triviality, the choir school has stood as a rare bastion of permanence, a place impervious to fads and ephemera. To dismantle it is to sever one of the last links to a tradition that our culture, bereft of depth, can neither create nor replace. 

If we allow this legacy to be destroyed, we will have conceded to a society that has forgotten the meaning of permanence, beauty, and the sacred. Preserving the choir school intact is not simply a matter of saving a school or choir; it is a defense of values that affirm life’s highest ideals. 

Let us not fail in that defense.

Ian Fisher is a 1995 alumnus of Saint Thomas Choir School and majored in music at Yale. He lives with his wife and children in Kenilworth, Illinois, where he is a private market investor and sings in the choir at Saint James Cathedral in Chicago.