During their careers, choristers gain enormous benefit from experiences beyond the liturgical services. The Cathedral Choir broadcasts regularly on BBC Radios 2, 3, and 4, and on television. Its innovative recordings for Hyperion Records, Signum Records, and Regent Records have won international praise and acclaim from BBC Music Magazine, Classic FM Magazine, International Record Review, The Observer and The Independent. Two recent discs were also selected as ‘Editor’s Choice’ in Gramophone magazine.

As well as the liturgical musical repertoire, the choir performs larger scale choral works in concert, with recent collaborations including BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Britten War Requiem), Jools Holland and his band (Jools Holland Mass), Wells Cathedral Oratorio Society (Britten St Nicolas and War Requiem), Aled Jones, Dame Felicity Lott, Dame Emma Kirkby, James Bowman CBE, and Wells Cathedral School Chamber Orchestra at royal gala concerts at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and St James’s Palace, London (pictured above). In September 2014 the choristers sang with the Berlin Radio Choir and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle OM, in a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the BBC Proms. Shortly afterwards they sang with The Script on the ITV Pride of Britain awards, which was screened to an audience of five million viewers.

The choir has travelled extensively with tours to Paris (2006), the North West of England (2008), Germany (2009), The Netherlands (2010), Scotland (2011), Hong Kong and Beijing (2012), and a second tour to The Netherlands (2015).

Wells Cathedral also runs an outreach programme which regularly takes our choir into parish churches around the diocese, allowing their performances to touch congregations who would not normally be able to travel to the Cathedral. And the Wells Cathedral ‘Be a Chorister for a Day’ event takes place each year in October, when children aged between 7 and 9 years old have the opportunity to learn what it is like to be a Cathedral Chorister. Up to forty five children can attend the event. The day includes singing games, learning about the Cathedral and finding out what a Chorister really does. At the end of the day the children sing Evensong with the Cathedral Choir.

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