Church Music at St Martin's

Our musicians aim:

  • To prepare and give to God our very best music in worship.
  • To build on our reputation and sustain a high standard of singing and praise.

Music for the principal services at St Martin's is provided by: 

  • The Choir at the 9.15am Mass on Sundays and Festival services
  • The Singers at the 11.15am Mass on Sundays
  • The Folk Group at the 11.15am Parade Mass on the first Sunday of the month and at special seasonal services.
  • The Congregation at 6pm on Saturdays.

The Choir, which sings mainly traditional style music, rehearses Thursday evenings:  trebles between 7 - 8.30pm (with voice training 6.30 - 7.00pm) and adults between 7.45 - 9pm. We meet on Sundays at 8.45am to make sure the music is ready for the 9.15am service.

We sing a wide variety of music from the early centuries to the present time. Composers include Bach, Byrd, Elgar, Goss, Handel, Mozart, Pitoni, Rizza, Schubert, Stanford, Tallis, Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams and Wesley.

Treble members of the choir receive training through the Royal School of Church Music’s Voice for Life scheme learning how to sing, read musical notation and about the place of music in church services. They are able to progress through a series of graded ‘ribbons’ followed by awards that are externally assessed and presented at St Paul’s Cathedral. 

The Singers meet at 10.45am on Sunday morning to prepare hymns and songs for the 11.15am service. This provides a good opportunity for enthusiastic but busy people to contribute in a regular way to leading the congregation.  The current Director of Music is Mervyn Hogg and he can be contacted via the Parish Office (see below).

Members of the choir and singers are also participants in the St Paul’s Cathedral Diocesan Singers where music is prepared in a workshop and sung to a high standard at the Cathedral’s Sunday evensong.

FOLK GROUP

The present Folk Group which plays at the monthly parade mass is changing!  Due to David Green's other duties, he has stepped down and it seems that now is the time to do something diffferent with the music for this mass.  Through this music we aim to offer for everybody who has or wants to develop their musical talent an opportunity to contribute to worship at St Martin's.

New ideas are needed NOW to give new direction to the music, so all aspiring & young musicians (or young at heart) please get in contact with Dom Ewing or Fr Simon via the Parish Office [Click Here