Frideswide Voices Director to take up new role

Since 2019 Helen has been the Director of Frideswide Voices, the girls' choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford as well as working across the UK as a conductor and workshop leader. A passionate advocate and campaigner for the role of women and girls in church music, she oversaw the choir's transition from an independent choir to one forming part of the choral foundation at Christ Church.

Frideswide Voices was founded in 2014 as the first liturgical choir for girls aged 7–14 in Oxford, and its first Director was Will Dawes. In September 2019, Helen Smee was appointed the choir’s Director, and Frideswide Voices was brought into the choral foundation at Christ Church, where it became the Cathedral’s girls’ treble line.

The girls are drawn from more than 25 different schools across the city and county. They sing Evensong in the Cathedral each Wednesday during term-time, on several weekends across the year, and during major festivals including Christmas and Easter. 

This academic year marks a double anniversary, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the foundation of Frideswide Voices and the fifth anniversary of their incorporation into Christ Church. Frideswide Voices was named for the patron saint of Oxford, first to found a religious community on the Christ Church site, and first abbess of the monastery there. 

Helen was Director of Music at St Mary the Virgin, Merton Park for eleven years, and in 2014 co-founded the Voices of London Festival. Since moving to Christ Church, she has balanced Cathedral duties with a portfolio of other work, including running schools' singing events and outreach projects, teaching choral direction, and working with the chapel choirs of Hertford College, St Edmund Hall and Worcester College. 

As a writer and campaigner, her articles and interviews have featured in a range of publications, including most recently Choir and Organ and Cathedral Music magazine. In 2018 she won the Action for Children’s Arts Members’ Award in recognition of her outreach work with young people and was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 2022. 

Helen said: “I am thrilled and honoured to be invited to join the Cathedral community at Southwark as Director of Music. As the first cathedral into which I ever stepped, it has long been a place which has inspired me, and I look forward with anticipation to making a contribution to its rich and vibrant communal life. I will be following in the footsteps of a great many distinguished and hard-working predecessors, and will strive to build on Southwark's rich musical history and forward-thinking outlook. 

“It will, however, be deeply sad to leave Christ Church, and in particular the outstanding team of choristers, choir families, musicians, and teachers which make up the Frideswide Voices community - I look forward to watching their continued development and success in the years to come."

Peter Holder, Organist and Official Student in Music at Christ Church said: “We are thrilled for Helen as she takes up this significant new post at Southwark Cathedral. Helen has contributed immeasurably to the music of Christ Church, and her work with Frideswide Voices since 2019 has been critical in embedding Oxford’s celebrated choir – originally founded to offer girls opportunities to sing across a number of the university’s chapels - firmly within our choral foundation; it is fitting that Helen’s final months with us should coincide with a number of events marking their 10th anniversary. Southwark will be delighted to have appointed so experienced and committed an ambassador for its music!”

The Very Rev'd Dr Mark Oakley, Dean of Southwark said: “I am so delighted that Helen is joining us at Southwark Cathedral. She brings a very strong set of gifts with which to develop the profound ministry of our Choirs as they enrich our daily worship and perform widely to various audiences. Music is in the heart of the Cathedral, and we are delighted that Helen is full of energy and experience to direct the Choirs’ amazing skills that serve both our liturgy and our locality”.

The Revd Canon Peter Moger, Sub Dean of Christ Church said: “We are delighted that Helen has been appointed to this post after having made such a significant contribution to the music of Christ Church Cathedral.  She will bring many gifts and a wealth of experience to her new role at Southwark.  She leaves us with gratitude for all she has achieved here, and our very best wishes and prayers for the future.”

Helen will take up her new role in September 2025.