Looking back on a stellar career in Oxford, Stephen Darlington, who has left Christ Church Cathedral after 33 years, has many things to be proud of.

Professor Darlington held an unusual post – serving as both the director of music for Christ Church Cathedral, overseeing the world-class cathedral choir and working as its organist, he also had a key academic role in the college’s faculty of music.

He said: “In a way, I think the best achievement or most exciting achievement is to have played a part in the development in lots of generations of children’s and young adults in their musical lives.

“That’s a nebulous thing but obviously there are amazing excitements I’ve been able to have with the choir over the year – looking back to [performing at] Sydney Opera House, or the year the [Berlin] Wall came down we did a programme for BBC TV.”

He added: “Once we were on tour in Poland and we did Mozart’s Requiem in this huge church, which was the centre of the Solidarity movement. You were conscious of all these political things going on around you. I could go on for hours: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo...China: the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing. When they built the Olympic Stadium, which they called the Bird’s Nest, they also built an amazing arts complex, which is called (informally) The Egg.”

He said other achievements include rediscovering older music, making over 50 commercial recording with Christ Church’s choir or commissioning other esteemed composers, including Howard Goodall, a friend.

Some of the best known recordings of the choir – including the theme tune of the Vicar of Dibley, or Mr Bean, the world famous comedy co-written by former Christ Church students Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis – have been composed by Mr Goodall.

Indeed, the choir performed Mr Goodall’s most recent composition, Invictus, in London. A recording will be released in August.

And in conversation Professor Darlington returns consistently to education – the benefits of being trained in music, as a child or as an adult studying at university.

He adds: “I’m a teacher and I’m a professional musician and I’m an academic musician but I’m involved with education, albeit in quite an exclusive environment within church music and liturgy and so on.

“But just to be able to influence people and to show them what they’re capable of and give them guidance on the way and develop their musical ability [is a benefit].

“There are a lot of transferable skills you get from being in a choir: being part of a team, confidence; children stand up in front of 3,000 people and sing a solo. It gives you something that you can transfer into other aspects of your life.

“Also, I suppose having a sense of standards [in a choir] – there is a bar and you can reach that bar and aspire to great things and also experience great music.”

Professor Darlington is looking forward to travelling around the world, particularly to Australia, once he leaves Christ Church – but he is also hoping to influence the future of music teaching.

He said: “It’s under threat. A lot of regional cathedrals struggle to make the books balance and it’s quite expensive. If you’re going to have really good music and provide bursaries for their education and support with everything it surrounds so I’m keen to see what we could do to get more philanthropists involved in it and training programmes.

“You can have as many talented children as you like but if you don’t have good teachers to inspire them it’s a bit of a waste of time. I will try to do what I can, in terms of influencing the next generation of teachers.

“Lots of cuts are going on.”

He said the fight is on to make music more inclusive and not exclusive – and that there is good work going on around Oxfordshire to ensure children who might not have heard choirs and singing at home get to hear it in some other way.

Professor Darlington’s passion for teaching was one reason he helped with the cathedral’s music trust, which is climbing to its £13m target.

The trust funds up to 100 per cent of school fees, including the £63,500 Stephen Darlington Organ Scholarship.

He added: “There’s this perception that music is just for toffs and for educated people and that it’s very expensive. I’m keen on sport too. To go to an individual football match is very expensive too – you can go to the opera much more cheaply.

“The demographic of people who go to concerts here is quite different from on the continent – or in China. The concerts we do there, 60, maybe 70, per cent are younger people – by that I mean people up to their mid-20s. It’s just perceived differently. It’s a fault of the classical music industry [in the UK].”

Professor Darlington will be replaced in September by Steven Grahl. He is currently the director of music at Peterborough Cathedral, where he has worked since 2014.

He is also a junior fellow at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, president of the Incorporated Association of Organists and conduction of Peterborough Choral Society and the Stamford Chamber Orchestra.

He has spent time in Oxford – serving as the assistant organist at New College, Oxford and conducting Schola Catnorum.