Choral Evensong

Choral Evensong is on at Chester Cathedral on Thursday 5 November, one of the many services the cathedral choir sings throughout the week. It's a service with choristers, part of the cathedral's regular choral life rather than a one-off concert, and it's open to anyone who wants to drop in.

To get a feel for the place, it helps to know what you're walking into. The cathedral's roots go back to a church founded in 660 AD, and the building we see today dates from 1868. The organ has a bit of a story too: it was essentially a new instrument built in 1875-76 by Charles Whiteley and Company of Chester, with help from Cavaillé-Coll in Paris, later rebuilt by Hill and Son in 1909-10 and by Rushworth and Dreaper in 1969-70 under organist Roger Fisher. It's been heard in weekly recitals since 1972, so it's a well-used part of the building's musical life.

The choir itself sings eight services a week, drawing its choristers from local schools — the Choir School closed in 1976 — and it founded a Girls' Choir in 1996. They've toured abroad and commissioned works from composers like Anthony Piccolo, Philip Moore, Howard Skempton and Matthew Martin. There's also the Cathedral Nave Choir, founded by Dean John Saul Howson in 1867, which is the longest-running voluntary choir in the country. If you can't make it in person, all the said and sung services are live-streamed on the cathedral's YouTube channel.

Evensong runs every Sunday from 15:00 to 16:00 and every Monday from 17:30 to 18:15, so if this Thursday doesn't suit, there's usually another one just around the corner. The service is at Chester Cathedral, the Cathedral of St Werburgh and the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the heart of Chester.