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Royalty. Celebrity organists. Famous former choristers. Even politicians can trace their lineage back to choristerships. The vein of choral music is rich with dazzling success and rightful pride in the achievements of those who have benefitted from its existence. For all the excellent things they do to raise awareness of English Sacred Choral Music, however, it is not those I wanted to focus on…
The below post was originally a talk given on Michaelmas, at St Michael and All Angels, Mount Dinham, on Saturday 27 September 2025. Some of the text has been adapted to reflect the different audience reading this post. ---------------------------------------- Spain, the late 4th century. In the cooling evening sun a Spanish poet sits down to write. England, the mid 19th century. A translator…
Five years. F I V E. If this page/account/website/niche-content-provision was human, it would off to school in September. Fortunately, for all concerned, it has not yet gained sentience. This is helped by its being run by a choral singer, not best known for their consciousness at the best of times. (And August, for a choral singer, is not the best of times.) Five years is a lot of memes. Let's…
In 1893, former Durham choristers were surveyed as to their post-chorister careers a decade after leaving. They included an organist, a teacher of music (neither of which is surprising), various clerks, a brass finisher, a currier, and an engineer. Choristers have always gone onto a huge range of careers, many of which are entirely owing to the person's having been a chorister at all. This…
"Hear my law, O my people: incline your ears unto the words of my mouth." So begins Psalm 78, the longest portion of psalm appointed for Morning or Evening Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. It is sung on The Fifteenth Evening, and this trio of words inspires a strong reaction to any sacred choral singer who has ever sung the traditional psalmody. If you hear Evensong on the 15th evening of the…
Holy Week is the most solemn week of the Church’s year. Donkeys on Palm Sunday lead into the Passion narrative and a series of early-week services that vary from place to place. Tenebrae, compline, simple Evensongs, Passions; there is variety in that first half of the week, but which lead us ever closer to the Cross, through word, reflection and – most importantly, of course – music. The story of…
"I guess this is your busy time of year, huh?" It is. Yes. Every year. Choirs across the country spend the week leading up to Christmas rehearsing, preparing for, and singing many carol concerts and services. Many will already have done so through December, and before even. Thousands of notes sung (for the altos mainly an E, but still) and hours of singing the same carols for different audiences,…
O sing unto the Lord a new song. Yesterday, as I was singing MacMillan's little anthem, A New Song , with its slightly bonkers organ accompaniment, it struck me how, in microcosm, it reflects how it feels to start a new year in a choir, from the first note of the first year, to the first note of the senior year. The organ part starts by mirroring the treble notes, holding down each as it is sung,…
July 2025 update: a version of this text is now included as part of my new book, Evensong - Notes from the Choir . ------------------------------------ As we accelerando into July, many are approaching an unwanted double bar line in their life. Around five years ago, musical children or musical parents heard about something that - for want of a better term - struck a chord. It led them to becoming…
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week . If the last three years have taught us anything, it is a greater awareness of our own mental health. Three years ago, by the summer of 2020 I missed singing. We all did. But, as I've said elsewhere, I missed everything else that went with it. The human connection through musical collaboration. I started Quire Memes to fill that gap. I spend time creating…
