Choral Scholarships

King’s offers a number of Choral Scholarships each year. Although many of our Choral Scholars are members of the Music Department, we welcome Choral Scholars from every department at King's, subject to timetable compatibility. Applications from postgraduate students are also welcomed.

The Choir’s principal role at King’s is to provide music for Chapel worship, with weekly Eucharist and Evensong services offered during term time, as well as various other services. Services from the Chapel are frequently broadcast on BBC Radio; the Epiphany Carols Service was broadcast on Radio 3 in January 2017. The Choir also regularly sings for worship outside the university, including at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a number of our Choral Scholars sing at special St Thomas' Hospital Chapel services.

In addition, the Choir gives many concert performances. Recent festival appearances in England include the Spitalfields Festival, Oundle International Festival, and the Christmas Festival at St. John’s Smith Square. In June 2017, the Choir joined forces with Britten Sinfonia to give the UK premiere of Samuel Barber’s The Lovers (Chamber Version) at Kings Place, the performance described in The Times as ‘sung beautifully, the voices judiciously blended’.

The Choir tours widely, with recent destinations including Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, the USA and Nigeria. In July 2017 it served as choir-in-residence for the northeast convention of American Guild of Organists and Royal Canadian College of Organists in Montreal.

The Choir has made many recordings, and enjoys an ongoing relationship with Delphian Records. Recent recordings have attracted favourable reviews, described in BBC Music Magazine as ‘astonishing’ and ‘a choir as passionate as it is disciplined’, featuring as the Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, and receiving five stars from Choir and Organ. 2017 saw a collaboration with Mary Bevan, Marcus Farnsworth, James Baillieu and Richard Uttley to record the German Requiem of Johannes Brahms in its 1873 English-language setting for Delphian Records, described as ‘utterly uplifting’ by Norman Lebrecht in La Scena Musicale and ‘an intimate, highly charged chamber performance’ by Stephen Pritchard in The Observer.  

Timetable           

The Choir also sings for extra services including Eucharists on major feast days in term-time, a Roman Catholic Latin Mass, Greek Orthodox Vespers, Memorial Services and many more.

In addition, the Choir sings at London events including the Guy's & St Thomas' Palliative Care Unit Service at Southwark Cathedral, and the Service of Thanksgiving for those who have donated their bodies for medical research at St George's Cathedral, Southwark.