Nicola Lisle finds Oxford’s newest girls’ choir flourishing in its first year

Oxford has a long history of boys’ choirs, with the best English chorister tradition, but now the girls are getting in on the act too.

Girls’ choir Frideswide Voices was founded in September last year by Jonathan Arnold, Chaplain and Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, and parent and teacher Tanya Simpson, and was created specifically for girls aged seven to 14 to sing sacred music in the Oxford college chapels.

“We’ve got a fantastic wealth of choral opportunities in Oxford, including the choral foundations, but they’re very much focused on opportunities for boys,” Tanya says.

“There was no opportunity for girls to experience singing within the liturgy to gain all they could from the training experiences of choristerships.”

Music director Will Dawes agrees: “In this day and age it seems only fair that there is an opportunity for girls in a city of great choral foundations to have a go themselves.

“We’re not trying to break the system, but we are trying to re-shape it slightly.”

Already the girls have sung in Evensong services at Worcester, Trinity, Queen’s, St Peter’s and Oriel college chapels, and there are plans to sing at Christ Church and New College. A recent highlight was singing in the Monteverdi Vespers with Magdalen College Choir as part of the Oxford Early Music Festival.

Now the choir is looking forward to an end-of-term Evensong service at Worcester College on June 26.

“It will be a celebration of what we’ve achieved so far,” says Will. “So there will be music by Lennox Berkeley, Geoffrey Burgon and Charles Villiers Stanford, and they’ll sing the whole lot – introit, responses, psalm, canticles and an anthem. That’s very exciting to be part of.”

Frideswide Voices is run by a committee and a charitable trust, The Frideswide Foundation, and organisers hope to set up an endowment fund to secure the choir in perpetuity. Other plans for the future include expanding the repertoire, and possibly commissioning new works.

Meanwhile, new members are always welcome. Entry is by audition, with rehearsals and Evensong services held on Monday afternoons.

“We’d love more girls to join us,” Will says.

“We always have vacancies for younger girls, in Years 4 and 5, and occasionally in other year parts as well.

“Also, we want people to turn up and listen to the girls on a Monday afternoon.”

Both Will and Tanya are keen to emphasise the musical and social benefits of singing in the choir.

“One of the great thrills about starting a choir from scratch is that everything is new,” Will says.

“The girls didn’t know each other and they hadn’t sung most of the music before.”

Tanya agrees, adding: “We asked the parents and girls recently to give their thoughts on how it was going and we got lots of very enthusiastic feedback.

“The girls enjoy the intellectual stimulation, the challenge and the social side.

“It’s a really great opportunity for them to mix with people outside their own school friendships.”

* frideswidevoices.co.uk

Frideswide Voices, Worcester College Chapel, Mondays 4.30-7pm. More info at frideswidevoices.co.uk