Search Site: 
 
The Choir


The choir sings for the eleven o'clock service from the Sunday following Labor Day through Pentecost Sunday, and for services on Christmas Eve, Maundy Thursday, and All Souls Day. The choir rehearses on Sunday mornings before the service from 9:15 to 10:45, and on the first Sunday of the month after the service from 12:40 to 2:00. The choir maintains a membership of around twenty-five singers, and averages sixteen to twenty persons on any given Sunday.

When singing for services, the choir follows the English model of utilizing a complete SATB choir on each side of the divided chancel. The choir on the liturgical north (pulpit) side is called the cantoris because it includes the choir cantor. The choir on the south (lectern) side is called the decani because it would include the dean's seat in a cathedral church. Mostly, the two choirs sing simultaneously, but this arrangement also allows the choir to sing anthems written for double-choir as well as English anthems specifically written for a choir divided into dec. and can. sections.

The choir's musical focus is on unaccompanied music from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and twentieth centuries. Highlights of the past year include a service of advent lessons and carols on Rose Sunday, a service of Christmas lessons and carols on Christmas I, and sung Mass settings commissioned by and composed for All Souls Choir on Christmas Eve, Maundy Thursday, and Easter Sunday.