St Stephen’s is well known for its high quality choral music, and we are maintaining this as best we can through our online services.
Many of the services include previously recorded music. Before lockdown, the choir recorded a number of hymns for Palm Sunday and Holy Week, along with some suitable anthems. In addition to that, we are fortunate to have a number of recordings of St Stephen’s choir singing in various cathedrals from previous tours. This has meant that we have been able to provide a virtual Choral Evensong each week and will continue to do so.
However, there are now some gaps that we are endeavouring to fill each week through our virtual choir, where choristers record their parts at home and they are then assembled together to produce the effect of a full choir. Members of our congregation who have been taking part in the online services have commented on how nice it was to hear familiar sounding voices.
On this page you’ll find all of the resources to be a part of the virtual choir over the next few weeks – it will be continually growing so do check back regularly.
The virtual choir is open to anyone; you might be a current member of the choir, someone who has sung with us in the past but has moved away, or perhaps someone who is looking for an opportunity to have a go at some singing while you’re at home with not as much to do as normal. Everyone is welcome to take part. If you’re new to us, perhaps you’d like to come and sing with us when we’re back singing together in church?
Rehearsal tracks
Although we’re not recording virtual choir tracks at the moment, you might find some of the following videos useful for practicing music in advance of services.
Music for the Commemoration Service for HRH The Duke of Edinburgh