Today, the top notes of boy choristers clad in their robes will soar through the medieval Salisbury Cathedral, thrilling the massed faithful.

Meanwhile, at Southwark Cathedral, Easter Sunday is one of only two days in the year when the 22 girl and 22 boy choristers are allowed to sing together. They will be belting out “hymns, the setting of the Mass and anthems”, according to Dean Colin Slee.

All through Britain’s cathedrals, similar scenes will be repeated, involving many choristers drawn from the choir schools attached to these old places of worship.

For centuries, the cathedral choir schools, some of which select by entrance exam and charge up to £20,000 a year, have offered a disciplined education to a privileged few. So high are the standards that Tony and Cherie Blair have reportedly already visited the choir prep boarding-school at Westminster Cathedral – perhaps with an eye to placing young Leo there.

In return for what can be a world-class musical education, many choristers live away from their family from a young age and sing six days a week, turning out three times on Sundays.

But now there are plans afoot to end centuries of history by linking dozens of choir schools with nearby state schools and turning some into state academies – big, free of charge and open to all. “Perilous” financial pressures on some choir schools coupled with a desperate shortage of trebles (because boys’ voices are breaking earlier each year) are claimed as factors driving the shift.

But will it infuse the nation’syoungsters with a transforming passion for choral music – as its supporters argue – or mean the end of a tradition of excellence? Under government rules, academies are allowed to select only one in 10 pupils. So how will choral standards be maintained?

Labour MP Frank Field, who is involved in the negotiations, does not believe there is any chance of them dropping. “If, as is rumoured, Leo Blair were to get a place at a Catholic choir school, that would be wonderful. But we want thousands of little Leos to have the opportunity to study at that kind of school,” he said last week.

The effect of increasing numbers and largely doing away with selection is actually quite hard to predict. Contrary to popular belief, not all cathedral-choir-school pupils sing in the choir, nor are they all given places because of their singing ability. Admission until now has depended largely on passing entrance exams and being able to pay the fees. Many argue, therefore, that throwing open the doors to the choir schools could lead to more – and better choristers – being discovered.

That’s certainly been the experience at Bristol Cathedral school, the first to convert. In September, the centuries-old school will scrap its fees of about £9,000 a year, do away with its selective entrance exams and open as an academy of 650 pupils – 250 more than before.

The headmaster, Hugh Monro, says that last year there were only four choral applicants for seven places. This year, that figure has soared to 70 applicants. “I think we will certainly get more choristers from this,” he says.

The spiky-haired charismatic choir-master Gareth Malone, star of the recent television series The Choir – Boys Don’t Sing, is another supporter. And Malone, of course, managed to turn a bunch of comprehensive pupils and teachers into a choir that made viewers cry when it sang in full voice at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

“Originally, when choirs took boys from the monasteries, they were not necessarily the sons of noblemen,” Malone points out. “I do not think these choirs should be the preserve only of those who can afford to pay the fees.” He admits, however, that a choir drawn from a state academy is going to be “a very different experience from the intense world of today’s choristers. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing”.

And it could help improve behaviour, even be the making of rough, tough boys. After all, the benefits of singing in beautiful historic spaces shouldn’t be underestimated. “In the first programme of The Choir, you see me coming up to a school and saying, ‘Oh, it’s one of those’. Prefab Fifties schools aren’t inspiring places. By contrast, when I took the boys to the Royal Albert Hall, awe was etched on their faces. Boys walking across green lawns to sing in the cathedral – that does make you feel special.”

The Church of England is at the forefront of the push to create state choir schools. However, Oona Stannard, the director of the Catholic Education Service, said last week that Catholic cathedrals were also interested in “exploring this avenue.

Indeed, Field has taken Catholic bishops for meetings with ministers at the children’s department and the plan is for 20 either to open choir schools in the state sector or to introduce choral training into their existing schools. Southwark’s Catholic diocese, like its Anglican counterpart, is among those taking the lead.

Ultimately, says Gareth Malone, people shouldn’t worry about upsetting traditions. “The tourists will still be able to snap choristers walking in procession to sing Mass,” he says. “It’s part of our English heritage – it won’t disappear.”

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