I’ve been making enquiries about taking a visiting choir to sing services at St. Paul’s or Westminster Abbey. We used to be regular visitors, and indeed the Abbey and St. Paul’s would sometimes turn to us if they found they needed a visiting choir for forthcoming services. But we haven’t been for a few years now, so I’m restarting the process.<\/p>\n
I don’t know how the choir applied originally to sing, but the process at both places is now more formal than elsewhere, with forms to fill in, and in the case of St. Paul’s an optional recommendation from someone well-known in the world of church music is requested. This is a little hard for us to supply; when we visit cathedrals, the director of music is inevitably usually away, and we are heard by the cathedral clergy but not by the music professionals.<\/p>\n
I sense that there are now rather more choirs in this market than before. While not all of them can take over a remote cathedral for a week, a day or two in central London is easy to manage and desirable, so there is more competition. I will report back on the outcome of our applications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been making enquiries about taking a visiting choir to sing services at St. Paul’s or Westminster Abbey. We used to be regular visitors, and indeed the Abbey and St. Paul’s would sometimes turn to us if they found they … Continue reading