History of the choir
There has been a choir of boy choristers and Vicars Choral at St Paul’s for over nine centuries. The choir was enlarged and re-organised in the late nineteenth century under Sir John Stainer, and St Paul’s was one of the first to care properly for its choristers with appropriate housing and education. The present choir consists of around thirty singing boys and twelve adults.
The Choir is at the heart of the daily round of worship in the Cathedral singing daily Evensong and three services on a Sunday during term time. In addition, it takes part in a number of services of national importance, many of which are broadcast around the world. Most recently these have included the celebration of HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (2012), the funeral of Baroness Thatcher (2013), services to mark the end of military activities in Afghanistan, the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo and the 10th anniversary of 7/7 (all in 2015), HM The Queen’s 90th Birthday (in 2016), the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service in 2017 and a live broadcast in memory of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh in 2021.
The choir regularly commissions new works; in recent years, these have been from Sir John Tavener, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, John Rutter, Francis Grier, Judith Bingham, Nico Muhly, Will Todd and Judith Weir.
The choir has given concerts extensively in the UK, Europe, Japan and North America including Freiburg, Aldeburgh and Frankfurt. In April 2015, the choir toured the United States, performing in Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Washington DC, Minneapolis and Chicago. The choristers toured the United States again in April 2018. In November 2019, the choir gave a concert in the Monastery of Santa Maria in Alcobaça, Portugal.
