The Chapter House Singers is a choir of around 35 amateur singers based at St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh. We are always happy to welcome new members, and currently have vacancies for sopranos, altos, tenors and basses. We rehearse on Wednesdays at 7.30pm in the Song School of St Mary’s Cathedral, Palmerston Place. If you have sung in choirs before, you should be a good enough singer to join us. Usually the best way to join is to come along to come along to one or two rehearsals (and the pub afterwards, if you like). The final decision about joining the choir rests with the musical director.
We sing the Cathedral services about six times a year when the Cathedral Choir is on holiday. This is a vital part of our work. It enables us to sing a great range of music, because on each of these Sundays we sing at the morning service and again at Evensong. Evensong allows us to perform the most beautiful music composed for the Anglican Church. In return, the cathedral allows us to rehearse in the lovely Song School, with its famous murals by Phoebe Traquair. These important and glorious works are only very rarely open to the public. A very small section of the murals is in the image at the top of this page.
We usually present two choir concerts a year in Edinburgh. Past concerts have included Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice by Finzi and Haydn’s Maria Teresa Mass. More recently the choir performed Britten’s St Nicolas Cantata, Ave Rex by William Mathias and Durufle’s Requiem. We also gave the first performance of the Bach St Matthew Passion in Orkney, in partnership with the Mayfield Singers in St Magnus’ Cathedral; and at Christmas 2009 we gave the first Scottish performance of The Far Theatricals of Day by Jonathan Dove. In June 2010 we sang Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Both these last works are secular rather than church music, and we had several secular Christmas songs and readings in our 2011 concert ‘Tis The Season. The idea is that you do not have to be a committed believer to have fun singing with us.
If you are interested in joining us please contact Anne Milne (Tel: 0131 228 1909) for more details or you may email us using our Contact Page.
Rehearsal and performance terms run from late early September to December and January to June with a long summer break: equivalent to university semesters. Our concerts usually take place in December and June. We sing the services in the cathedral on various dates: usually in September, October, January, February, March and May.
The Chapter House Singers is a member of Making Music, an organisation representing and supporting amateur music and promoting musical societies throughout the UK. See www.makingmusic.org.uk/ .
Registered Scottish Charity. Ref: SC025545
