Quorum Singers of St Albans

Well, at the very least, we all think it’s great!

As a relatively small choir, we pride ourselves in ensuring our voices blend well for the music we sing, and we receive many compliments about the high quality of our tone and blend.

Not all choirs are trying to raise money for charities, so we think it’s pretty special for us to put our voices to good use. Supporting the local community is never a bad thing in our eyes.

Singing is good for you. Ok, so this isn’t Quorum-specific, but we do have a great time at rehearsals, and learning the music is great practise for your memory, a good lung workout, and singing is well-known for being an anti-depressant (it’s a way of releasing endorphins without the need for chocolate – that’s just a bonus.)

Quorum is proud of the great tone and quality of our singing. We tackle some tough songs, and we are able to make them sound wonderful. You can hear that in our recordings.

If you can think of a reason not to join Quorum, then we’re happy to talk that through with you, too.

In 2019, we almost doubled our numbers and have a maximum number of 38, but the pandemic has meant some people aren’t so confident to return to rehearsals, so we have some capacity. Right now, we are very much looking for Tenor voices, and have some spaces in the other voice parts (Soprano and Alto, typically female voices, as well as Basses, lower male voices.)

Tenors aren’t just men, by the way – we have a good history of having female Tenor singers, too!

In all cases, feel free to get in contact in case our circumstances have changed, we may well add you to our waitlist, though, or ask you to try a different voice part.

It’s pretty simple!

First of all, fill out this form to let us know you’re interested!

Next, come along and give us a try for a couple of weeks. Singing is a hobby we all love, so we want you to love it too, and to feel comfortable singing as part of Quorum Singers.

After a few rehearsals, if you want to carry on with the choir, we’ll ask you to do a quick voice check at the end of a rehearsal. This is not meant to be intimidating and you don’t need to prepare anything (unless you have a particular tune you want to share with us). We’ll check your vocal range (to see which section you’re best suited to) and your tuning.

If all goes well at the voice check, we’ll send you a welcome email with all the information you need, and ask you to sign our GDPR form so that we can contact you when we need to.

Then that’s it! Welcome to the choir, join us at rehearsals and get ready for performing and raising money for local charities and good causes.

Short answer: yes. We ask for payment of membership fees once per term (3 times per year).

The fees are really reasonable, we just need to cover the costs running the choir: insurance, hall hire, paying our wonderful accompanist and Musical Director and buying or renting new music. Membership fees are reviewed termly, and are currently around £50 per term (£150 per year).

We know everyone’s situation is different, so just have a chat with us, if you feel that the cost will stop you being able to join. We will always take your circumstances into account.

Remember, we’re a fundraising choir, so we’re here to raise lots of money for charity, not ourselves.

It’s fair to say we have a mixed repertoire. We sing both secular and religious music, folk and traditional music, a capella and accompanied. We’re not big into show-music, but we crack out some pop music now and again.

Recently, we’ve sung Russian folk music, African traditional songs, music from Disney’s The Lion King, and Toto’s Africa. That’s not forgetting the classic Christmas carols, too.

We’ve sung Bob Chilcott’s On Christmas Night, and John Rutter’s Sprig of Thyme, giving plenty of opportunity for solo voices, as well as some complicated harmonies.

Check out some of our music on our concerts page.

We practise on Wednesday evenings during term times (time off over Christmas, Easter and Summer holidays, as well as half terms!), from 8pm – 9:30pm.

Rehearsals are generally held at Dagnall Street Baptist Church, St Albans, in the church hall.

Before a concert, we usually practise ‘in situ’ at the performance venue for the final rehearsal. We’ll also rehearse on the day of the concert, for a little bit (again, at the concert venue), this is just to get our voices warmed up, and iron out any last minute kinks in our pieces.

We know people are busy, get ill, or just deserve a holiday sometimes, so 100% attendance is a tough call. At Quorum, we ask that you attend as often as you are able to (and let us know if you can’t make it.)

As a relatively small choir, it definitely works better when attendance is consistent, as it does make a difference to the pace of learning of the whole group.

You’ll soon work out how much practise you need, and you might need to do some homework to keep songs fresh in your head, or to finally conquer those bars with the awkward timings.

Our aim is to get concert-ready, so if that means putting youtube on repeat for a while, writing lyrics on post-its or just attending rehearsals as normal for the music to sink in, then that’s down to your learning style. If your attendance is too low, you may be asked not to attend a concert.

Plenty of our local members walk to rehearsals. Dagnall Street Baptist Church is just off the main high street (opposite the White Swan), so is street lit throughout the year, and it’s a lovely walk in Summer (slightly darker and chillier in Winter).

For people on the Thameslink line, we’re a 15 minute walk from the City Station, and for bus users, there’s plenty of services that stop at the “Police Station” stop along Victoria Road. From there it’s a 2 minute walk.

For people coming from a little further afield, there’s no parking at the church, but Gombards car park is free during rehearsals, and is only a 5 minute walk away. Christopher Place car park charges in the evenings, but is directly opposite the church.