About Cheerful Voice

We are a choir that meets up a few times each year to sing Choral Evensong and other church services in the most special and inspiring places, usually cathedrals and collegiate chapels, or chapels in former stately homes. If you love singing traditional sacred choral music in a choir, and like the idea of doing so in amazing locations with new and old friends and partaking of agreeable hospitality, this could be something you would enjoy.

We organise live and virtual singing events, usually but not exclusively involving traditional church music and hymns. These may be workshops or opportunities to sing for church and cathedral services such as Evensong. There is no standing choir—invitations go out and anyone can join for any project they like.
You just need to be willing to do the note learning in advance.

Details of new events are posted here.

This website is also our 'Music Cupboard' : the place where those signed up for a particular event or project can download the music and rehearsal aids.

If you would like to know more about any of these events, please get in touch here.

Check out our Facebook page.

What people say

These are some of the comments from those who took part in recent events:

"Thank you for such a wonderful three days in Salisbury. Everything was perfect: the music, the church, the amiable company, the White Hart, its wonderful staff and the food."

"I just wanted to thank you for an excellent and stimulating afternoon and evening."

"Your organisational skills are second to none"

"What a lovely day.THANK YOU !"

"Well, what a privilege to sing in such a splendid building.We really enjoyed the whole day."

"Thank you for a marvellous day yesterday at The Charterhouse - it truly was a memorable time ! "

"This, from us, is heartfelt. We had an absolutely wonderful time - in fact we didn't want it to end."

"Thank you….for such an amazing week. It has been brilliant"

"Thanks so much for a fantastic week"

"So many thanks for a completely brilliant weekend! We loved it. It was everything we hoped - musically enriching, social, good food and all in a great locations."

"A massive thanks for a fabulous weekend of singing in Bath Abbey. And it wasn't just the singing .... the whole weekend was a real joy."

"Thank you and all your amazing team for a fantastic weekend. It was so special to sing with friends in the Abbey and enjoy the socialising as well.""

"Thank you for such a memorable weekend in Bath. I really appreciate all the planning that goes into organising such an intensive programme."

These are some more of the things said by those who have taken part in earlier events:

"Thank you so much for a perfect weekend."

"I can't stop singing all those lovely pieces from the weekend."

"We really enjoyed the whole weekend !"

"Thank you so much for a perfect weekend. It had everything, music, singing, fellowship...and food. Your organisation and attention to detail is just incredible and very much appreciated."

"Thank you both for a most marvellous musical weekend !"

"Terrific weekend !"

Our aims and principles

This is how we like to do things:

We rehearse together only on the day or weekend of our performance.
To make this possible, we post the music and our own rehearsal videos or recordings here on the website in the weeks ahead of an event. Participants need to take as much or as little time as they need to learn their part, so that on the day our rehearsal time focusses on final shaping. Regular participants find that the time spent singing through the rehearsal videos and getting to know the music is part of the enjoyment of the occasion.
This approach allows us all to sing together in interesting places in addition to, and without getting in the way of, any regular choir we might be committed to.

We like singing services, especially Choral Evensong, 'on location' in places such as significant historic churches, catherdrals or special chapels.
Singing something like Choral Evensong is a three dimensional experience: the music, the fact that it is a 'live' service, and the physical surroundings are all part of what makes it a remarkable and enjoyable experience.

We love hymns. We take them as seriously as the rest of the music. Where the choice is ours we select them carefully from the past 400 years of English hymnody, research them thoroughly and like to sing them in full and in harmony as far as possible.

We research all the music and in most cases produce our own editions based on the earliest printed scores. Our Musical Editor spends many hours in the British Library for each event. This is to enable us to sing what the author and composer originally intended, as far as possible, and to avoid any unwelcome changes by later editors, a particular problem with hymns. These editions are then available for you to freely share and copy (for non commercial use) for any choir you may be invoved with, because we want authentic music from the historic repertoire to be available freely in accurate editions for all.

Where we can, we like get to know the places we visit, enjoy agreeable hospitality, and get to know each other better, all of which helps us sing together better.

Cheerful Voice Events has no financial objectives other than to cover costs and any surplus generated goes towards the annual overheads of the website, insurance, and our other expenses.

Who is the team?

The Music Director of With Cheerful Voice is Philip Price. Phil plans and organises each event, selects the repertoire, and conducts on the day. Nicholas Markwell prepares and edits the scores, which we usually draw from the orginal or earliest available printed sources. Andrew Price helps run each event on the day. Other friends, associates and participants help out from time to time as needed.