London Archdiocese Releases Choir Videos to Share 'Power of Worship Through Music' | National Catholic Registry

The Archdiocese of Southwark in London released a series of choir videos this week in the hope of contributing to “conservation”. [the] To strengthen the “great tradition” of liturgical music and to bring more people to the Catholic Church.

The archdiocese, based in central London at St. George's Cathedral in Southwark, said on its website that the cathedral released the videos “to promote the power of worship through music and song.”

“The church’s musical tradition is a treasure of inestimable value, and musicians have a duty to preserve this great tradition,” Jonathan Schranz, the archdiocese’s music director, said in the news release.

“In our own way, we in Southwark have the privilege of using our voices to lift hearts and minds upward through liturgical song every week,” he said.

St George's has an extensive choral program with singers of varying ages and abilities. The church's cathedral choir, whose origins date back to the 1840s, “consists of boys' and girls' choirs aged 7 to 12, as well as nine professional singers called amateur scribes,” according to the cathedral's website.

The Cathedral Consort was founded in 2019 and consists of “a select group of teenagers ages 13 and up.”

The Southwark Singing Program, meanwhile, was launched in 2022 as “a diocesan music training program working in partnership with schools and parishes to develop musical offerings and spiritual singing across the diocese”.

This program provides for “weekly whole-class singing sessions in primary and secondary schools” that “feed into local extracurricular choirs that perform community and school liturgies.”

Archdiocese spokesman Patrick Kinsella told CNA that the choirs are “always performing and practicing.”

“We host these sessions to promote the power of worship through music and showcase the talented choirs,” he said. “By using social media, we hope to reach as many people as possible.”

“We want to inspire not only people who go to Mass every day or every week, but also those who haven’t attended in a while,” he said.

“When we hear the beauty of the music, we pray that it will lead people to go to church again.”

“It’s a special pleasure to work with children”

Recent performances shared by the Archdiocese include modern songs such as “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)” and “The Power of the Cross,” performed by children from the Southwark Singing Program.

There will also be more traditional and ancient works such as “O nata lux” and “Tantum ergo,” performed by the Cathedral Consort and the Cathedral Choir.

Among the musical performances published by the archdiocese is the Gregorian chant “Veni Creator Spiritus,” performed by the lay secretaries.

Schranz said in the archdiocese's press release that it was “a special pleasure to work with children from our archdiocesan schools on these recordings.”

“We should not only accept the children’s passion for singing and music, but also passionately encourage them,” he said.

On its website, St. George's Cathedral states that its original choir “was founded in 1848 when the cathedral opened.”

The choir sings weekly at Sunday mass “and at important events of the year such as Advent, Christmas, Holy Week and Easter”.