Chester Cathedral Choir and Organ

Calling all families with children aged 5-11 who love to sing!

Come and learn about life as a Cathedral chorister, join in fun music games and rehearsals, and be taught some beautiful music.

Find out the immense benefits of being a chorister - from the outstanding music tuition they receive to learning how to work as a team, gaining self-discipline and confidence and enjoying a social life with like-minded people.

For more details and to register, get in touch with Mr Mathieson at [email protected]

We hope to see you there!

A very Merry Christmas to you all from everyone in the music department!
What a wonderful autumn term it has been for our choir topped off by a magical Advent and a Christmas! Topping it off with a wonderful festival eucharist with some magnificent singing to a packed cathedral!

We have been busy this month singing 19 services, carols at the switching on of the cathedrals Christmas lights, carols at Bishops Palace, our famous Carol concert and Handel's Messiah!
We are all looking forward to a well deserved rest over the Christmas holidays!
Thank you to all who support our choir, come to services and concerts and listen online as well as those of you who send in letters, emails and comments!!

Have a peaceful Christmas and New Year! ☃️

Evensong tonight was attended by some very special guests. The Archbishops’ Council met in Chester on this cold and drizzly day, and attended our service sung by the boys and lay clerks, with Ebdon responses, Batten’s First Service and “Rejoice in the Lord” by Henry Purcell. The choristers were delighted to sing to the Archbishops and their council and we hope all had a lovely time in Chester!

As always, you can catch up with the service online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqj5QhzQvqY

Last night the countdown to Christmas began!

🎄The choristers sang at the launch of the Christmas Tree Festival last night, giving delighted crowds a foretaste of what’s to come in December!

🎅🏻We have a packed schedule ahead of us which makes this the choristers’ favourite time of year.

🕯️Christmas begins officially with the moving Advent procession from darkness to light on Sunday 3 December at 6pm.

🎶Our ever-popular annual Christmas Carol Concert will be on Saturday 9 December at 7.30 - ticket price includes mulled wine and a mince pie but hurry, they’re selling out fast! https://chestercathedral.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173632961

🎵The Nave Choir carol service is on Sunday, 10 December, at 3pm, no booking required for this but arrive in plenty of time to get a good seat.

🎻Something the choir have been looking forward to for a long time is our festive performance of Handel’s Messiah with the amazing London Concertante - book your tickets here https://chestercathedral.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173643420

✝️Our famous Service of Lessons and Carols can be heard on 23 December at 6pm and Christmas Eve at 3pm - attendance is free but please pre-book at https://chestercathedral.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173606078

👼🏽The Crib service, starring children from our Sunday School and Saturday Singing Club, will be on Christmas Eve at 5.30pm, and the First Service of Christmas, or midnight mass, is sung by the Nave choir and begins at 11.30.

We hope you can come and join us at one or more of our many musical Christmas offerings, and that all our followers have an exciting and blessed Advent!

Our Nave Choir will be performing a a concert of Music for Remembrance and Reflectoon at St. Werburgh's Church this Friday 10th November at 7.45pm 🎵🎵

Our Nave Choir will be performing a choral concert of Music for Remembrance and Reflection at St Werburgh's Church on Friday 10 November at 7.45pm.

The music will be centred around the themes of remembrance and reflection, featuring music by Herbert Howells, William Byrd, Kerensa Briggs, and others.

This concert is free with a retiring collection, no booking is required.

🎵 Tonight at 5.30pm our boy choristers and lay clerks will be singing a requiem eucharist for All Souls Day. Singing Bob Chilcotts gorgeous requiem. 🎵

We would love to see you in person or online!

Photo taken by cathedral verger Gareth Rainsforth.

We are very excited to be singing at the RSCM celebration day come and sing evensong today! This year's service combines the Chester Area Festival with the annual honorary awards ceremony with musicians from all over the world being given awards!

With music by William Byrd, Joanna Forbes L'estrange and Charles Villers Stanford!
The massed choir will be conducted by Peterborough Cathedrals Director of Music Tansy Castledine with our own Organist and Master of the Chorister Philip Rushforth at the organ bench!

There is still time to pop along for this wonderful evensong which begins at 5pm! 🎵🎶

If you're around Chester Catherdal this Saturday, come along to our special Come and Sing service, where we get to celebrate church musicians, the work of the RSCM and those receiving an Honorary Award from the RSCM 🥳

Find out more at https://www.rscm.org.uk/whats-on/celebration-day/

Today’s Evensong began with five promotions in the boys’ choir.

Ben is this year’s head chorister, with Will as the deputy head chorister. Tom, Oliver and Monty have all been made full choristers. Congratulations to you all!

The service continued with Ayleward responses, Batten Second Service and Purcell’s stunning Benedicite - if you missed it you can catch up on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MJOK5YOuuA

Evensong today started with our traditional start of term chorister promotions!
Congratulations to Reika who has been promoted to leading chorister, and to Anita who was promoted to chorister.
Well done girls! 🥳

We were absolutely delighted to welcome members of the Cathedral Music Trust to applaud the gift that music is to our worship, and in gratitude for the work of the Trust in supporting the rich choral tradition and allowing people of all backgrounds to get involved in choral music.

We are immensely grateful to the Trust for their grant which has enabled the recruitment of our new Assistant Organist and Head of Music Outreach, Dan who commences employment this Sunday!

We are very excited to receive a cheque from The Cathedral Music Trust today at Evensong!

We are hugely grateful for this generous grant and we must say a huge thank you to the Cathedral Music Trust and to everyone who donates so that Cathedral music can be kept alive across the country.

Evensong today will be sung by our boys and lay clerks and include music by Grayston Ives, Peter Aston and Ralph Vaughan Williams ❤

Do join us in the Quire or online at 5.30pm

https://youtube.com/?si=MnuHTZAkXQ3BuuCD

Grant Celebrations: more dates added* 🎉

Join us at your local place of worship for a special choral service to kickstart a year of support for choirs doing fantastic work 🙏

Now featuring this year's Church Choir Award recipients (in partnership with Royal School of Church Music)

More at http://bit.ly/cmt-gc23

Evensong today is sung by our girls are lay clerks with music by William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and John Hilton! 🎵🎵
Do join us online or in the Quire at 5.30pm!


https://youtube.com/?si=OcimATxOYMzuEoeB

Photo taken by Gareth Rainsforth, one of our cathedral vergers.

Our annual Heritage Discovery Day 2023 is today! With a whole host of activities and heritage skills and craft demonstrations, archery and more!
There will be singing from members of the Nave choir and cathedral choir throughout the day, from traditional plainsong which would have been sung by the monks all those years ago to a tudor evensong given by our boy choristers and lay clerks and an organ recital of works by William Byrd given by our Sub-Organist Alex!

Do check the website for more information.

Our annual is back on again tomorrow, but this year we are exploring a Tudor theme!

As usual, we will have a variety of crafts demonstrations and stands from our own team, as well as lovely talented individuals and companies from near and far!

Fancy a go at archery? Tickets are available on the Cathedral website, or on the day at the Cathedral Admissions desk - we hope we see you there!

And just like that our boy and girl choristers have started their first week of term.

We have a packed term ahead with music old and new, special services, concerts and of course the run up to Christmas! 🎶

We are looking forward to our chorister promotions as well as welcoming new choral scholar Rhys to the back row.

We are recruiting for both boy and girl choristers, so if your child enjoys singing and is aged 6-11 we would love to hear from you.

If you are interested and would like more information about your child joining the choir you can email: [email protected]

Our lovely full choir photo was taken by Cathedral verger Gareth Rainsforth.

As the summer draws to a close we hope you have all had a lovely summer!
A massive thank you to all the visiting choirs who have lead and enhanced worship over the past few weeks with your glorious singing!

We also have some exciting news!
We look forward to welcoming Daniel Mathieson to the music department as Head of Music Outreach and Assistant Organist!

Daniel is an Oxford-based organist, and held the positions of Organist at St. Mary Magdalen and Assisting Organist at Keble College. He recently attained a master’s degree in music performance at the University of Oxford with distinction. He taught for the University of Oxford and at Downe House School, and has previously worked at Salisbury Cathedral and Radley College.

As a recitalist, he has performed for the Three Choirs Festival, the Buxton Festival and at Westminster Cathedral. He has also worked with the internationally-renowned Trinity Boys Choir in concert and on tour. Recent work as a continuo player has included Bach’s St. John Passion, Handel’s Coronation Anthems and Messiah.

He has studied the organ with William Whitehead and Dame Gillian Weir, and conducting with Jeremy Summerly. He is a prizewinning Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and has co-authored a forthcoming article on contemporary organ music for the RCO journal.
We look forward to welcoming Daniel to Chester in October. 🥳

Following our epic final evensong of the year (hope you tuned in!), the choristers, lay clerks and their families were treated to tea and cakes in the refectory. We said goodbye to boys’ head chorister Seth, next year’s promotions were announced, and prizes were given out.

Somehow we were lucky enough to get a break from the stormy weather and we managed games of rounders and football, before starting the fancy dress disco!

What an excellent end to a successful and busy year, time for some well-earned rest now!

The last day of term is here! We can't believe how fast this year has gone!
Our final eucharist this morning is sung by the girl choristers and lay clerks with music by Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, William Byrd and Jacob Handl.

Evensong today will be sung by the whole cathedral choir with music by Herbert Howells and Philip Moore.

After evensong will be our end of year prize giving, photograph and picnic! 🥳

As always our services can be found on our livestream or you can join us in cathedral at 10.30am and 3pm.

https://youtube.com/

Today was Saturday Singing Club’s last day of the year and the children had a lovely time performing to their families!

Saturday Singing Club is a fun-filled group for children aged 6 and over, held in the Cathedral Song School every week during term time. Prior experience isn’t necessary, and children are taught music theory, about composers, and they make great friends who share a love of singing!

For more details please contact Tim McLachlan at [email protected]

Today marks 400 years since one of Britain's greatest composers William Byrd died!

Evensong today will feature solely music by Byrd including his Third Service canticles and 'O Sing Joyfully' one of his well known anthems.

Do join us in the Quire or online at 5.30pm
https://youtube.com/

Tomorrow our Nave Choir are performing music for a summer’s evening at St. Werburgh's Church at 7.45pm with a selection of music throughout the ages!
So if you're in Chester tomorrow evening, why not pop along?
Entry is FREE with a retiring collection.

today is sung by the Boy Choristers and Lay Clerks. Singing Batten 1st service and the absolutely gorgeous 'Hear my Prayer' Purcell.
Join us at 5.30pm in person or online! 🎵🎵

https://youtube.com/

🎼 Could you be our next Tenor Lay Clerk? 🎼

Singing 6 services a week with the cathedral choir, along with special services at Easter and Christmas, radio and television broadcasts, CD recordings, concerts, and tours!

Chester is a small vibrant city with both roman and medieval heritage with good links to Liverpool, Manchester and North Wales, with lots of work opportunities close by!

The cathedral founded in 1092 as a benedictine abbey is a building full of history as well as having the most complete set of preserved monastic buildings in the country!

On the site of the monks dormitory is the purpose built modern song school with ample practice space and good acoustic.

This post would suit a current lay clerk, choral scholar looking for a lay clerk post or a student with choral singing experience.

For more information please contact Director of Music Philip Rushforth [email protected] or 01244 500974

You can find the full job description and how to apply here: https://chestercathedral.com/about/vacancies/

Cathedral Music Trust Friends of Cathedral Music Choral Evensong Appreciation Society Choir & Organ

And we’re back! What a wonderful trip we’ve had, with so many magnificent memories of laughter, fun, friendship and music.

We’ve been 100 feet underground, gone up 165 feet above ground, have gone ten pin bowling, had giant tropical butterflies land on us and played mini golf; we’ve played bingo and had a quiz, explored the street food, come face to face with Edward Elgar on his bike, and heard the organ’s glockenspiel. The people of Hereford couldn’t have been more welcoming, and the choristers sang beautifully (of course!) - we’re all so grateful to Mr Rushforth for arranging it!

Now we just need a little rest before term starts again on Monday - see you then!

We’re off! Our choristers are so excited to be setting off for Hereford Cathedral, where we’ll be singing evensong till Wednesday!
The forecast is good, and we’ve got some fun activities lined up, so watch this space for updates on our Hereford Tour!