This summer the Saint George’s Choir and Choristers will travel to Gloucester Cathedral in western England, where they have been invited to serve as the choir in residence. Over 50 of our singers and chorister parents will spend the week of July 14-22 at this magnificent cathedral singing daily Evensong and Sunday services while the resident cathedral choirs and choir school are on break. 

Gloucester Cathedral has a history of daily worship that stretches back more than 1000 years, and for seven days this summer, our choir and choristers will be a part of that tradition.  During our residency, we will weave together our music ministry as part of their daily prayer and worship life. Each day the choir will take a morning excursion to an area of interest to learn about it and its history. We then return to the Cathedral for an afternoon of rehearsals followed by Evensong in the early evening. 

Gloucester Cathedral is a magnificent place steeped in history and beauty. It is a place that ignites imaginations, deepens the spiritual within, and centers people in prayer, among many other things. It is an example of the ancient being relevant today, and a place where music is very much at the heart of worship. Gloucester Cathedral is a place like us in many ways, a place that shares our beliefs and way of being in the world. 

Our residency at Gloucester Cathedral allows us to sing music at the core of our Anglican tradition in one of the places where it was born. (Ask your favorite chorister about the Herberts.) It gives us a chance to bring music that is important to our country and parish traditions to the people of Gloucester and offer it as part of their rich tradition of daily worship. The daily rhythm of creating music in this glorious space and worshipping daily together in a place steeped in beauty will no doubt deepen our spiritual and musical lives.

Gloucester Cathedral’s vision for its community is that they are a people “in tune with heaven and in touch with daily life.” Based on Benedict’s “rules” or rhythms of life – prayer, study, work, re-creation, and hospitality – this vision helps one hold their life in balance. Gloucester’s vision speaks to the very heart of our music ministry here at Saint George’s as we seek to bring “glimpses of heaven” and make God’s all-embracing love known through song. As we go about the daily rhythm of our residency, our prayer will be that we are transformed, our faith deepened, and that we return home more attuned to the musical service we are called to here at Saint George’s: inspiring others through song to be “in tune with heaven and in touch with daily life.”

Soli Deo Gloria,

Ben Keseley, Minister of Music