Frideswide Voices To Perform in Dublin’s Cathedrals for Choir Tour

Christ Church Cathedral’s girl choristers, Frideswide Voices, set off for Dublin this Saturday for their choir tour.

Together with the Lay Clerks of the Cathedral Choir, they will sing for a Sunday morning Choral Eucharist and three services of Choral Evensong at our fellow Christ Church Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough and the seat of the Archbishop of Dublin. These services will also be streamed on the Christ Church Cathedral website: https://christchurchcathedral.ie/worship/live-video-stream/.

The choir will also sing evensong and give a free lunchtime concert at the Church of Ireland’s national Cathedral, St Patrick’s, on the 29th July. The recital gives the choristers the chance to perform some of their favourite pieces to a new audience, from folksongs by Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten, to songs of nature and nurture by Charles Wood and Eleanor Daley. The service can be watched live on the St Patrick’s website.

Frideswide Voices was established in 2014 to provide opportunities for the first time for girls aged between 7 and 14 to sing within the liturgy in Oxford College chapels. In 2019, they became a permanent part of Christ Church’s historic choral foundation (which dates to 1525), with award-winning conductor and workshop leader Helen Smee appointed as their new Director. Its members are drawn from schools across the county of Oxfordshire, and come to Oxford three times a week to rehearse, study music, and sing services in the Cathedral with the Lay and Academical Clerks and supported by the Cathedral Sub Organist, Richard Moore (who will also be providing accompaniment and voluntaries for the choir during their tour). They also maintain a busy programme of concerts and tours in Oxford and further afield.  

The ensemble is named in honour of Oxford’s patron saint, St Frideswide, a Saxon noblewoman who founded a religious community of women over thirteen centuries ago on the site now occupied by Christ Church. St Frideswide and her nuns would have sung daily worship services, or ‘offices’, and the modern day Frideswide Voices follow in those footsteps. St Frideswide’s shrine in the Cathedral was a popular destination for medieval pilgrims, and remains a place of Christian pilgrimage today.

The choir are delighted to be visiting Dublin, and warmly invite members of the Christ Church community in Ireland to come and say hello. Here are all of the dates and times that you can hear them:

Schedule

 

Sunday 28th July

11 am: Choral Eucharist, Christ Church Cathedral

3.30 pm: Choral Evensong, Christ Church Cathedral

 

Monday 29th July

1.00 pm: Lunchtime Recital (Admission Free), St Patrick’s Cathedral

5.30 pm: Choral Evensong, St Patrick’s Cathedral

 

Wednesday 31st July

6 pm: Choral Evensong, Christ Church Cathedral

 

Thursday 1st August

6 pm: Choral Evensong, Christ Church Cathedral

Other Christ Church news

A small group of pilgrims walk past a bend in the river Thames
COLLEGE |

New St Frideswide’s Way Pilgrimage Walk Launches

We are excited to launch a new walking pilgrimage route from Oxford to Reading along the Thames Path named after Oxford’s patron saint. St Frideswide's Way begins at the shrine in the Cathedral, which once brought medieval pilgrims from far and wide to Oxford. The route follows a picturesque 40-mile stretch of the Thames Path, with stops along the way at 24 different churches in Oxfordshire and Berkshire's riverside towns and villages, including Abingdon, Dorchester, Wallingford, Goring and Pangbourne. 

A small group of pilgrims walk past a bend in the river Thames
A large group of women ordained in 1994 are gathered wearing albs and stoles, and joined by Bishops Olivia Graham, Steven Croft and Gavin Collins. The first female Dean of Christ Church, Sarah Foot, is also present. They are waving and looking thrilled that women triumphed over discrimination to flourish in spirit and ministry.
COLLEGE |

Celebrating Thirty Years of Women's Ordination to Priesthood

A special service of celebration took place in the Cathedral last Sunday to mark thirty years since women were first ordained as Church of England Priests in the Diocese of Oxford. While women could be ordained as Deacons from 1987, it was not until later that they were able to become Priests permitted to celebrate sacraments such as Holy Communion. The first ordinations of women in the Diocese of Oxford took place on April 16th and 17th 1994 in Abingdon, High Wycombe, Reading, Banbury, Buckingham and Oxford. The service was led by the Diocese’s first female Bishop, The Rt Revd Olivia Graham, Bishop of Reading; while the first female Dean of Christ Church, The Very Revd Professor Sarah Foot, served as liturgical Deacon. 

A large group of women ordained in 1994 are gathered wearing albs and stoles, and joined by Bishops Olivia Graham, Steven Croft and Gavin Collins. The first female Dean of Christ Church, Sarah Foot, is also present. They are waving and looking thrilled that women triumphed over discrimination to flourish in spirit and ministry.
Girls of the Frideswide Voices choir singing in the Cathedral

Other Christ Church news

A small group of pilgrims walk past a bend in the river Thames
COLLEGE |

New St Frideswide’s Way Pilgrimage Walk Launches

We are excited to launch a new walking pilgrimage route from Oxford to Reading along the Thames Path named after Oxford’s patron saint. St Frideswide's Way begins at the shrine in the Cathedral, which once brought medieval pilgrims from far and wide to Oxford. The route follows a picturesque 40-mile stretch of the Thames Path, with stops along the way at 24 different churches in Oxfordshire and Berkshire's riverside towns and villages, including Abingdon, Dorchester, Wallingford, Goring and Pangbourne. 

A small group of pilgrims walk past a bend in the river Thames
A large group of women ordained in 1994 are gathered wearing albs and stoles, and joined by Bishops Olivia Graham, Steven Croft and Gavin Collins. The first female Dean of Christ Church, Sarah Foot, is also present. They are waving and looking thrilled that women triumphed over discrimination to flourish in spirit and ministry.
COLLEGE |

Celebrating Thirty Years of Women's Ordination to Priesthood

A special service of celebration took place in the Cathedral last Sunday to mark thirty years since women were first ordained as Church of England Priests in the Diocese of Oxford. While women could be ordained as Deacons from 1987, it was not until later that they were able to become Priests permitted to celebrate sacraments such as Holy Communion. The first ordinations of women in the Diocese of Oxford took place on April 16th and 17th 1994 in Abingdon, High Wycombe, Reading, Banbury, Buckingham and Oxford. The service was led by the Diocese’s first female Bishop, The Rt Revd Olivia Graham, Bishop of Reading; while the first female Dean of Christ Church, The Very Revd Professor Sarah Foot, served as liturgical Deacon. 

A large group of women ordained in 1994 are gathered wearing albs and stoles, and joined by Bishops Olivia Graham, Steven Croft and Gavin Collins. The first female Dean of Christ Church, Sarah Foot, is also present. They are waving and looking thrilled that women triumphed over discrimination to flourish in spirit and ministry.