Join us for Evening Songs on 2 July 2024
Evening Songs: Tuesday July 2 2024 | 5.30pm | Salisbury Cathedral
We’d love to welcome you to the culmination of our third Evening Songs project, following 6 months of creative workshops. Our Evening Songs services have become a new choral tradition, integrating people with special needs into a Cathedral Choir on an equal footing.
This year the music and words were created by students from Exeter House School, Exeter House Vocational Centre, co-farmers of Able Hands Together and Salisbury Cathedral choristers. All led by musicians Howard Moody, Lynsey Docherty, Mark Padmore, and David Halls.
The History of Evening Songs
It’s hard to express how ground-breaking Evening Songs is: special needs students and choristers together devising new words and melodies. Although the format of the Evensong service remains the same, for the most part the content is original, crafted from the singers’ own experiences and perceptions.
Our Evening Songs service in 2016 saw the ancient words changed for the first time in 700 years of tradition. The precentor leading the service called it:
‘…one of the most, if not the most important thing the cathedral has ever done.’
Click here to watch a video taster of the project
The atmosphere for Evening Songs services has been sensational. There were over 900 people in the congregation in 2019, so you need to arrive in good time to get a seat in 2024!
Do please join us in celebrating this unique project – we’d love to see you.
Photo by Ash Mills