Our Next Event:
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Cathedral Evensong on 7th December 2024 5:30 pm
(See Events Poster Board for full details of all future events)
The Worcester Cathedral Chamber Choir is a mixed voice adult choir (SATB) comprising about 30 singers and working to a high standard of musical excellence. As a part of the historic community of Worcester Cathedral, the choir has gained a reputation for musical sensitivity and ground breaking performance.
The choir was founded in 1998 by its musical director, Stephen Shellard, in order to draw together a group of high quality singers from the local area to develop a concert repertoire and further enrich the choral tradition of Worcester Cathedral.
The establishment of the choir made history as, for the first time since its foundation nearly 1000 years ago, Worcester Cathedral included women’s voices as a part of its musical life.
Want to know more? For a fuller history of the development of the choir see How we got here.
As might be expected much of the music sung is from the traditional Anglican Church Music heritage. The choir’s concert repertoire includes Bach’s ‘St John Passion, Handel’s ‘Messiah’, Durufle’s ‘Requiem’, Faure’s ‘Requiem’, Purcell’s ‘Funeral Sentences for Queen Mary’ and Rossini’s ‘Petite Messe Solennelle’. In 2012 and 2013 the choir provided the vocals for a series of mystery plays produced in the cathedral and this in turn resulted in an invitation to provide the choir for the Rick Wakeman shows in Cheltenham in 2013. The choir’s recordings, ‘Sing, Choirs of Angels’, ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘A Worcester Evensong’, have been very well received, both in the UK and abroad and have featured on a variety of local and national radio broadcasts including Classic FM. Their recording ‘Hodie’ Music from Advent to Christmas Day went on sale November 2009. A CD of Elgar, Parry, Stanford and Vaughan Williams was released during the 3 Choirs Festival 2011 and part was featured in BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week in June 2013. The Choir’s latest CD of music for Royal Occasions is on sale on our Shop page. Click on the Recordings page to read more about this and all the currently available CDs or hear samples of selected tracks on the Latest CD.