Girls' Choir to Perform Evensong

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke Nov 15, 2006

For a millennium now, the choir at Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire, England has been filling the building with beautiful music. And for a millennium, this music has been performed entirely by boys. But back in September, the cathedral formed a girls' choir, and the ensemble is slated to perform its first Evensong this Wednesday. Many are greeting this change with enthusiasm, as a sign of crumbling gender divisions. There are several advantages to including girls' voices in a choral group. For example, girls' voices do not break as dramatically as boys' voices do. Girls can continue singing higher tones past adolescence.

Others, however, are worried. What is happening to tradition? Is the inclusion of girls simply a nod to political correctness? The timbre of girls' voices is different: will the purity of tone that give boys' choirs their particular appeal be lost?

Ely Cathedral is aware of these concerns: the cathedral is not replacing or even mixing its boys' choir with the girls' choir. Sue Freestone, who started the girls' choir at Ely, states that the girls' choir is simply an addition to a rich tradition.