Why join Epworth choir?

There are lots of reasons why people choose to join Epworth Choir, including:

• I saw ‘The Choir’ with Gareth Malone on the telly and wanted to have a go myself
• I used to sing a while ago and wanted to get back into it
• I enjoy listening to music or playing a musical instrument but I have never sung in a choir before and I wanted to learn
• I wanted to do something to support local charities but I don’t have much time so this is a great way to combine a fun hobby with doing something for charity
• I’ve sung in other choirs before but was looking for a bit more variety and different styles of music
• It’s a great stress-buster in the middle of the working week. a complete escape from daily life once a week; it’s very hard to think about anything else when you get really engrossed in learning and singing new music
• The satisfaction of learning something new; as well as the music itself, our music professionals are constantly sharing tips and tricks to help us get the most out of our singing
• You can join from anywhere in the world on Zoom if you like.

We love to have a great variety of people in our choir, so whatever your reason – even (perhaps especially) if it’s not on the list above – we want you to feel at home in Epworth Choir.

So what’s it like?

It’s like learning something new with a varied group of friends once a week. Some of us have been singing for decades and some of us only started recently and we all have our own tastes in music, we sing such a variety of different pieces and styles, we’re all learning something new every week. We learn from each other and we learn from our musical director and accompanist. They’re both accomplished professional musicians and have an enormous amount of experience in teaching and getting the best out of amateur singers.

How good at music do I need to be?

It doesn’t matter how ‘good’ you are, or how much experience you have, or whether you can sight read but the ability to read music would be useful. Come and try singing with us for a week or two: if you enjoy it and want to come back then we’d love you to join. There are no auditions, no tests, no ‘judging’ at all. You just need to enjoy singing and learning.

At the start of each ‘term’, most of us are in the same boat: we’ve never sung the music before, so we’re all learning it together. It’s pretty ragged to start with, but there is plenty of rehearsal time before each concert and for the trickier pieces, if covid restrictions allow we will split into smaller groups of people all singing the same part so we can learn the notes more easily.

For longer pieces we have a special website just for members where we share recordings of the music we’re singing so you can play it in your car or on your phone or wherever until you get the hang of it. That’s a really good way of learning the music in between rehearsals even if you don’t always have your music with you or struggle to read the notes.

When and where?

We rehearse once a week on Wednesday evenings at Trinity Methodist Church in Woking (map below) and we are still streaming our weekly rehearsals on Zoom. Rehearsals run from 7.30pm to 9.30pm with a break in the middle.

Concerts

We generally do 3 or 4 concerts a year – usually in April, June/July, October and a Christmas concert in December. We team up with other groups of singers, dancers and musicians depending on the concert, and perform in halls, churches and other venues around Woking and Guildford. Take a look at our past and future concerts pages to get a good idea of the range of music and concert venues.

How do we support local charities?

Each concert raises money for our charity of the year. Usually someone from the charity will come to the concert to speak about what they do. The charity helps us to promote the concert and then they take a collection from the audience at the end of the concert. The costs of putting on the concert (such as venue hire, fees for professional musicians and so on) are covered by the choir so the charity doesn’t have to worry about whether ticket sales will cover all of the costs; it just takes the whole of the collection. Over the years, Epworth Choir has raised tens of thousands of pounds for local charities through its concerts.

The choir covers concert costs by charging for ticket sales so it’s really important that everyone in the choir helps to sell tickets to family, friends, colleagues and anyone else they can find!

When can I start?

You are more than welcome to start any time during term time. the best thing is to just try us out one Wednesday evening and see how you get on. You’ll need to contact us (details below) and we will let you know how the details you’ll need to join us in person or online.

If you decide to stay in the choir long-term, there is a per-term charge made to all choir members which covers the costs of our rehearsal venue, our professional musical director and accompanist and other sundry running costs. The fee is currently £60 per term for those attending in person and £30 per term for those attending on Zoom.

Finding our rehearsal venue

We rehearse on Wednesday evening during term time at 7.30pm at the Trinity Methodist Church, Brewery Road, Woking, Surrey GU21 4LH.

Contact us

If you would like to find out more, please e-mail: secretary@epworthchoir.org or just fill in the form below: