Frideswide Voices
Frideswide Voices is the girls’ treble line, singing Evensong with the clerks every Wednesday and regularly singing on Sundays and for special services. Like the boy choristers, they are fully part of the choral foundation.
Choral Evensong takes place in the Cathedral each evening at 6pm. Everyone is welcome. The Cathedral Choirs also sing at the weekly Choral Eucharist (Sunday at 11am) and for other services and events. In addition to evensong, the Cathedral hosts a programme of special musical performances throughout the year – from organ recitals to concerts from visiting musicians.
Cathedral Choir
The Cathedral Choir has been a central part of Christ Church since its foundation in the sixteenth century. It comprises a treble line of boy choristers, an ATB line of men and women (lay clerks and undergraduate academical clerks), a Sub-Organist and organ scholars, under the direction of the Organist (the Christ Church title for director of music).
The choir sings daily (except Mondays), with repertoire ranging from pre-Reformation Latin sacred music to new commissions.
Find out more about Frideswide Voices
Cathedral Singers
The Cathedral Singers of Christ Church is the mixed-voice voluntary choir of Christ Church Cathedral and one of the most active choirs of its type in the country. Its main role is to maintain the Cathedral’s daily pattern of sung worship at times when the Cathedral Choir is away or on vacation. This amounts to over a hundred sung services a year. Directed by its own professional staff of Director and Organist, the choir comprises talented volunteer musicians from the local area, from young professionals to professorial fellows. Its repertoire spans from Renaissance polyphony to new music.
College Choir
The College Choir is made up of about twenty-five undergraduate and graduate students, and occasionally members of staff. They sing Evensong on alternate Mondays in term-time, plus termly Compline and College Communion.
It is a non-auditioned choir run by junior members who plan a programme of services and concerts each year, under the overall responsibility of the Chaplain.
Contact the College Choir manager
Visiting choirs
We are very pleased to welcome visiting Choirs to sing the services at Christ Church.
Please get in touch with the Liturgy Office at visitingchoirs@chch.ox.ac.uk to help you plan your visit to Christ Church, select appropriate music for the services, and anticipate the particular character of worship in Oxford’s Cathedral.
Concerts
The Cathedral is a popular venue for concerts and performances.
Used by local groups through to internationally renowned musicians.
Cathedral bells and organ
The 12 change ringing bells in Wolsey Tower and Great Tom in the belfry of Tom Tower have been synonymous with the sounds of the city for hundreds of years.
Great Tom is rung 101 times each evening at 9pm Oxford time (five minutes west of Greenwich) as a reminder of the curfew for the original 101 scholars at Christ Church.
John Taverner became the first Organist at Christ Church in 1526 marking the beginning of nearly 500 years of organ music at the Cathedral.
