GILES WOODFORDE talks to Edward Higginbottom as he marks 30 years as New College Choir's director of music

The coach was threading its way westwards through the London evening rush-hour traffic. On board was the Choir of New College, Oxford, which had spent the day recording some of the choruses from Handel's Messiah in St John's, Smith Square, close to the Houses of Parliament. The choir was in the process of recording the complete work, a project being undertaken to mark the 30th anniversary of Edward Higginbottom's appointment as the choir's director of music.

While the senior members of the choir, the men, dozed or completed their crosswords, the boys were full of life and energy: I felt tired after just watching the afternoon recording session, as each section of music was painstakingly repeated until it was absolutely right.

"It's been hard, but it has been good," boy chorister Henry Jenkinson told me. "We've recorded two of the most vocally demanding choruses - difficult because they're loud and big. That's been a challenge, and sometimes your voice gets worn out." Chorister William Ford added: "We're back on Saturday for another recording session, but tomorrow we've got school. No shouting tomorrow."

Besides the fact that boys, not women, are involved in singing the choruses, boys from the choir are also singing the female solo roles on this recording, a practice that Handel adopted in 1751, but which has rarely been followed since.

Chorister Robert Brooks put it this way: "Hopefully, this will be the definitive version. It is setting the standard, throwing down the gauntlet. This is the real deal. Recently John Eliot Gardiner a world-famous choral conductor, who I've had a masterclass with, said that boys couldn't really do Messiah, it had to be women. So we're basically trying to make him eat his words."

Back in the calm of his college rooms, Edward Higginbottom reveals that he has now spent half his life at New College - he has just reached his 60th birthday as well the 30th anniversary of his appointment.

I asked him if he had any idea he would stay so long.

"The short answer is no. I gave myself ten years to knock the choir into shape, as it were. It's the sort of thing one says as a young man.

"Two things to add to that: it's quite difficult to move on to somewhere that gives you as broad and interesting a scope as I get here. Secondly, things are constantly changing under your feet, so whatever you are knocking into shape, it's not the same year after year. So I've stuck it out, and with great enjoyment."

Mentioning that the sets of scores for the anthems in the choir's repertory occupied only two shelves when he arrived, Edward explains that he has greatly enlarged the range of music sung.

"I've got to know much more repertory, although some of my favourite bits remain my favourite bits. But I have broadened it, not just for me, but for the choir and the enterprise as a whole. It's not simply that we sing the Liturgy six nights a week during university term, it's that we provide an educational and cultural experience for all the people in the choir. Doing that means having a broad enough palette of repertory."

Thirty years ago, if a boy was inattentive, he might quite literally have had his wrists slapped. Now that is totally inadmissible.

"No one has used any form of corporal punishment here for a very long time," Edward said. "The way to look at it is this. Each child opens his soul to you when he sings. And the only way of achieving that is for the boy to feel utterly comfortable about what he is doing - supported, enriched, and not under the duress of punishment if it goes wrong.

"That's not to say that I don't have my regime of sanctions, but they're not applied in a way that removes the standing of an individual. Every time you stand up in front of the boys, their singing back to you is a constant reminder of whether you've got it right, or not as right as you would wish. In the end, they are not puppets on strings. The sorts of conversations I can have, certainly with the more senior boys, are the same as I might easily have with an undergraduate."

One thing that has not got easier over the years is the recruitment of new choir members.

"An experience like this lies outside the normal knowledge of a lot of parents. I understand that. They may not be churchgoers, or, if they do see a choir like this, we dress up as we do, and it does rather look as if we have come from another planet. You have to get over all that, haul parents behind the scenes, and open their eyes to the opportunities available to choristers.

"You also have to show them that these youngsters are just like any other children, except that they don't have time to watch TV. They have a very full existence and what they achieve is on the back of all our efforts and their potential."

The days are long gone since New College Choir simply sung services in chapel. It has not only recorded 80-plus CDs to date, it also tours all over the world. I once accompanied the choir on a tour to France and I remember it as being hard work for all concerned, certainly, but also a lot of fun.

"Not least," Edward agrees, "because most days you have to gear yourself up to giving a decent concert. But I have taken the kids up the Alps, swum them in the seas, done all sorts of exciting things - the memorable events certainly go with that old adage work hard, play hard'. The two are not incompatible, and you often find that the singing is unusually enriched by the enjoyment that the choristers are having on a tour. If you get a standing ovation in a big, world-famous concert hall like the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, as we have, you think: Well, good on you'. These are boys aged between nine and 13. They are being set beside the great musicians of the world and they are coming up to scratch. You've got to hand it to them, that is a fantastic achievement.

"In the world of child endeavour, it is probably only the gymnasts who get anywhere near this. They, too, achieve miraculous things. Unlike some gymnasts, however, I don't think our choristers end up suffering from various ailments of the joints by the time they are 13."

New College Choir is giving a special celebration concert on October 6 in the Sheldonian Theatre, starting at 7pm. Tickets (upper gallery only) from 01865 279519 or Oxford Playhouse (01865 305305). The choir's new recording of Messiah is on Naxos 8.570131-32. Copies can be purchased online from newcollegechoir.com