There is no audition. There never has been.
You turn up on a Thursday, stand next to somebody who already knows the piece, and sing as quietly as you like until you don't need to. That is the whole entry process, and it has not changed in thirty years.
7:25 · you're given a part — A guess from your speaking voice. It gets changed later if it's wrong, and it often is
7:30 · you stand with that part — Next to somebody experienced. Copy them — that is genuinely the method
7:35 · we start — On something everybody already knows, so nobody is reading anything hard on a first night
8:15 · tea — Twenty minutes. This is the bit that decides whether people come back, so we protect it
9:00 · done — You go home. Nobody asks you to commit to anything and nobody rings you afterwards
How the parts are learnt — By ear, by repetition, and from the person beside you. It is how choirs did it for centuries
Practice recordings — Each part recorded on its own. Play yours in the car twice and you'll know it by Thursday
What you do need — To turn up roughly on time, and to not mind being told you're flat
If you do read music — Good — you'll be put at the end of a row, because that is where you're most use to everyone else
If you'd rather play — Say so. Several of us came in that way and have never sung a note
A performance week — Add a Saturday morning. Roughly six of these a year, and the dates are out by September
December — Heavy. Four extra dates inside three weeks, and everybody can see it coming from months away
The spring peak — Heavy again but shorter — one long weekend, and then it's over for the year
Everything else — Genuinely one evening a week. Anybody telling you otherwise is describing a different choir
Money — None. The music is lent, the robes are lent and washed, and the tea is free
Come and watch before you decide
- Mon, Aug 24 · 5:29 AMSit in on an ordinary rehearsal📍 The choir loft — use the side door
Sit at the back with a cup of tea and watch a normal Thursday. Nobody will make you sing and you can leave at half time.
- Tue, Sep 8 · 5:29 AMEvening concert — you're the audience📍 The main church
Free, ninety minutes, no collection. If you're thinking about joining, this is the low-risk way to hear what we actually sound like.
Some voices don't settle at first — It is usually the wrong part rather than the wrong person. We move people about for a term before concluding anything
If it still isn't working — You'll be told kindly, in person, and not in front of the row. Never by silence and never by being left off a list
Missing weeks is never the reason — It has not once been the reason. It is always about the sound, and it is always said out loud
And then — There are five other jobs in the music, below. Two of them are harder to fill than a soprano
Other ways to be in the music
The sound desk
Two people run it and one of them is always away. Trainable in a month, and needed every single week.
Words on the screen
Somebody has to advance the slides. It sounds like a small job until the week nobody does it.
The music library
Copies out, copies back, torn pages mended. Whoever does this is the reason Thursday starts on time.
Accompanying
Piano, organ, guitar, cello, anything. Tell us what you play and a week gets built around it.
Setting up
Chairs, stands, lights, heating on at six. Forty minutes, and it is the friendliest job in the building.
Lifts
Three of the choir don't drive. If you pass their way that is a real job, and it is why they're still here.
“I told them I couldn't read a note. They said stand next to Margaret, and that was the entire training. Two years on I still can't read a note.”
J. Whitfield
Second year
“I said I was out until March when my mum was ill. Nobody asked why and nobody rang. My folder was on my chair when I came back.”
A. Devlin
Alto
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