Videos from the Jazz Mass are available to watch on YouTube! You can go direct to our channel or watch below!

Part one: Includes opening hymn (Give me joy in my heart), Kyrie and Gloria

Part two: Includes Gradual Psalm and Sermon

Part three: Includes Intercessions, Peace and Offertory hymn (Take Five / Sing of the Lord’s Goodness)

Part four: Includes Eucharistic Prayer, including Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei

Part five: Includes final hymn (O when the Saints) and recessional

On Friday 20th May St Stephen’s Choir sang a special service accompanied by the Very Big Penguin Band as part of the Sounds New contemporary music festival. You can listen to recordings of parts of the service by clicking on the links below:

• Procession and Opening hymn: Give me joy in my heart
• Kyrie – from ‘A Little Jazz mass’ – Bob Chilcott
• Gloria – from ‘A Little Jazz mass’ – Bob Chilcott
• Gradual Psalm 34 vv. 1-8
• Offertory hymn: Sing of the Lord’s Goodness
• Sanctus – from ‘A Little Jazz mass’ – Bob Chilcott
• Benedictus – from ‘A Little Jazz mass’ – Bob Chilcott
• Agnus Dei – from ‘A Little Jazz mass’ – Bob Chilcott
• Post-Communion hymn: O When the Saints go Marching in

Video of the service will be available on YouTube in the next week or so!

Bob Chilcott, composer of The Little Jazz Mass

On Friday 20th May at 6pm, St Stephen’s Church Choir will be singing Bob Chilcott’s Little Jazz Mass, accompanied by The Penguin Jazz Band.

The music will be performed liturgically, meaning that it will be part of a Mass (or Eucharist) service alongside hymns and psalms rooted in the Jazz traditions. There is no charge to attend the service – just turn up and enjoy!

This service is part of the soundsnew contemporary music festival – please visit their website for information about other events between 20th and 29th May.

A short personal note from me to every single member of the choir who made this year’s Passiontide and Easter so special. Every single piece of music was sung to such a high standard and with real thought and understanding.

Singing in Salisbury Cathedral on the day that the new Bishop of Salisbury was announced was very special and I was honoured to have the choir sing my anthem at Evensong that same day. Don’t forget to listen to all the recordings on the Salisbury page.

Your singing at the Top Choir Kent competition showed everyone that Church Music was very much alive in St Stephen’s, and despite not winning we had some very favourable comments from the judges.

The services in Holy Week were very moving – Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus after the distribution of Communion followed by the solemnity of Psalm 22 sung as the Altar was stripped. This was followed on Good Friday by the most beautiful singing of Victoria’s Passion and Reproaches. I honestly don’t think that there could be a more suitable service for Good Friday than that which we do at St Stephen’s.

The pain and sorrow of Good Friday is wiped out with the celebration of the Resurrection on Easter Day and this contrast was reflected in the way that the choir sang the Gloria from John Bertalot’s Johannesburg Service and Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus which brought the congregation to their feet. Easter Day was rounded off with a lovely Festival Choral Evensong, freed from the solemn bounds of Lent, the Clucas Responses rang out around the church, as did the Canticles in D by Brewer.

Of course, Eastertide lasts for several more weeks yet so there is much more musical celebration of the Feast to come! Thank you again to every member of the choir.

St Stephen's Choir in Salisbury Cathedral

St Stephen’s Choir were congratulated on their superb singing in Salisbury Cathedral this week.

Music was carefully chosen to reflect the solemnity of Passiontide, with Responses and Psalms sung to simple plainsong, and Canticles sung to faux-bourdon settings by William Byrd and Thomas Morley. The music also included a world première performance of Teach me, O Lord, composed by Organist and Choirmaster of St Stephen’s, Stephen Barker which was sung to a packed congregation during Evensong on Tuesday, the day that the new Bishop of Salisbury was announced.

Recordings and more photographs are available here…

St Stephen’s Choir are excited to have been chosen as finalists in the Canterbury Rotary Club’s Top Choir Kent competition to find the best amateur choir in Kent.  The final is on Saturday 16th April in the Shirley Hall, Kings School, Canterbury, starting at 6.30pm.  Tickets are available from the Marlowe Box Office.

Below are our audition pieces which we will performing on the night.

Hosanna to the Son of David (Weelkes)
Beati quorum via (Stanford)
O nata lux (Lauridsen)

St Stephen’s Church Choir will be performing an original composition by Stephen Barker (Organist and Choirmaster) when they sing in Salisbury Cathedral in April.

The anthem – Teach me, O Lord – sets selected verses from Psalm 119 as appointed for the Offertory on the Fifth Sunday of Lent interspersed with a refrain and concluding with a prayer from the Common Worship Psalter.

Music staff at Salisbury Cathedral saw a first draft of the composition last week and were pleased to approve it.

You can hear Teach me, O Lord during Choral Evensong on Tuesday 12th April in Salisbury Cathedral. It is hoped to make a recording available on this website shortly afterwards.

On Saturday 29th January, St Stephen’s Church Choir sang Choral Evensong in Canterbury Cathedral while the Cathedral’s own choir were singing in Rochester Cathedral.

The Canticles were sung to the setting in B-flat by Stanford, and the anthem, also by Stanford, was Beati quorum via, a setting of the first verse of Psalm 119: ‘Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way, and walk in the law of the Lord.’

Several members of the congregation commented on the quality of the singing, and one of the Cathedral’s sidesmen said that when he walked into the Cathedral he thought that it was the Cathedral Choir rehearsing; a very high accolade indeed.

Well done and thank you to everyone who sang on Saturday. Our next visit is to Salisbury Cathedral on Monday 11th and Tuesday 12th April.

On Wednesday 22nd December, St Stephen’s Church Choir sang carols at Ye Olde Beverlie, the choir local just over the road from St Stephen’s Church.  The was a large appreciative crowd who sang along to some carols and applauded generously.

Here are a few photos taken during the evening:

Carol_Singing_2010 (55 photos)
22 December 2010, Ye Olde Beverlie, St Stephen's Green, Canterbury.
Carol Singing in Ye Olde Beverlie, the choir local!

Note: To see the pictures in the original Picasa album, click here