Choristers at St Mary’s Kidlington

St Mary’s Choristers is a mixed children’s choir, offering young singers an opportunity to explore their musicality and lead the worship in their local parish church, continuing a centuries-old tradition of Anglican church music. Our philosophy is to strive for musical excellence, while being as inclusive as possible. As members of the choir, choristers learn the fundamentals of voice production, musicality and performance discipline and receive a comprehensive training in musical notation and music theory. But being a chorister is about more than just music – we aim to provide choristers with a supportive and stimulating environment in which they can build self-confidence and develop values of teamwork, responsibility and leadership that will last a lifetime.

NEWS: For upcoming chorister events see our Music Calendar here.

The Choristers rehearse from 6pm-7.15pm on Friday evenings and sing regularly at Sunday morning services, choral evensongs, and special services at Christmas and Easter, both as an independent choir and with the St Mary’s adult choir.

Membership of the choir is completely free of charge and new choristers are always welcome. Contact the Director of Music, Dr David Hewett (stmaryschoristers@gmail.com) if you are considering joining us and would like to know more.

To get a taste of what it’s like to be a chorister at St Mary’s, you can watch the short video below. Note that we have grown in membership since the video was made, but our principles remain the same! The soundtrack is a recording of the Hallelujah Chorus, made in 2018 by the St Mary’s Choristers and Choir, as part of our Passion Sunday service. 

During lockdown 2020, the choristers continued to meet for regular Zoom rehearsals and music theory sessions, as well as some in-person socially-distanced rehearsals in the churchyard! They also made a virtual recording of Elgar’s “Ave Verum Corpus” in collaboration with the adult choir. You can listen to it below: