Vocal groups
Whatever style of music you enjoy singing, St Andrews has a group that will cater for you. Group members must join the Music Centre.
-
Membership by audition
This year's production: Frank Martin’s Le vin herbé
In June 2025 Byre Opera will be performing Le vin herbé (The Magic Potion) by Swiss composer Frank Martin. Le vin herbé was composed during the Second World War and tells the medieval story of Tristan and Iseult, more familiar from Wagner’s very different music drama. Visit Frank Martin's website for more information about this rarely performed but exquisite opera, which will be performed in a recent English translation by Hugh Macdonald..
Performances will take place in the McPherson Recital Room on Friday 20, Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 June 2025. The production will be directed by Kally Lloyd-Jones, Associate Artist at the Music Centre, former Co-Director of the Byre Theatre and a regular collaborator with Scottish Opera, and conducted by Director of Music, Michael Downes.
Le vin herbé is scored for 12 singers, three of each voice type. All singers feature as soloists as well as taking part in the extensive choral sections. Auditions have already taken place.
For any queries or for further information about the production please contact Michael Downes on mjd14@st-andrews.ac.uk.
About Byre Opera
Byre Opera presents professionally directed, high-quality opera, performed in English, to audiences in St Andrews and beyond. Singers are drawn mainly from the undergraduate and postgraduate student bodies, but casts have also included young professionals, University staff, and local amateurs.
Singers benefit from regular coaching from internationally renowned opera singers and coaches as well as the opportunity to work with professional directors, designers and orchestral musicians.
Byre Opera, formerly known as St Andrews Opera, was formed in 2008 by the University’s Director of Music Michael Downes and has presented fully staged productions each year since then, except during the pandemic. Productions have included all three of Britten’s chamber operas, Turn of the Screw, Albert Herring and Rape of Lucretia, Handel’s Xerxes and Acis and Galatea, Gluck’s Iphigenia in Tauris, and Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen.
In June 2022, Byre Opera presented its first production in the Laidlaw Music Centre. The production was a new version of Debussy’s Pelleas and Melisande with a chamber orchestration by Matthew Rooke and a translation by Janice Galloway. The production was highly praised by a number of critics:
"Using a new reduced orchestration by Matthew Rooke (12 players, including harmonium, celeste and harp, in a shallow pit surrounded by walkways), the performance had all the intimacy and luminosity one could hope for. There was no perceptible loss of texture, and Michael Downes’s idiomatic musical direction honoured the score's subtlety and intricacy. Kally Lloyd-Jones's spare staging, designed by Janis Hart and shrouded in darkness, relied on hand-held spotlights to illuminate the singers and a sprinkling of decorative motifs. The performance style, seamlessly fusing music and theatre, compelled attention on verbal and physical expression."
Andrew Clark, Opera magazine
"[T]here was an impressive atmosphere of relaxed professionalism around Byre Opera’s chamber version of Claude Debussy’s masterpiece on Wednesday evening… [Kally] Lloyd-Jones and her designer Janis Hart make the fullest use of the venue in their black-and-gold staging. It emerges from the architecture of the McPherson Recital Room, the adaptable 13-piece band in the midst of the action and the auditorium and off-stage areas part of the sonic mix. With mirrored cubes and flying arches becoming pools, caves, beds, towers and windows, and the cast proving themselves adept stage managers and follow-spot operators as well as actors and singers, the production is stylish and splendidly lucid. Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist narrative has the clearest exposition, helped in no small measure by a healthy leavening of ironic wit in Galloway’s dialogues between the characters."
Keith Bruce, VoxCarnyx
"The greatest achievement came with the overall standard of singing and acting in such a small scale setting… a hugely effective company performance."
-
Membership by audition
St Salvator's Chapel Choir is the flagship choir of the University. More information about the choir and how to audition are available on the St Salvator's Chapel Choir website.
Choral and organ scholars are required to join the Music Centre. There are choral and organ scholarships available for University students.
For more information, please contact:
Director of Chapel Music
Claire Innes-Hopkins
Email: ceih1@st-andrews.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)1344 46 2237 -
Membership by audition
Celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2025, this choir of around 30 singers offers the opportunity to sing some of the finest choral music ever written, the glorious polyphony of the 16th century. Find out more on the choir's website.
Scholarships
The Renaissance Singers award up to three scholarships per year, one specifically for a tenor, plus two others. Students should be experienced choral singers with some sight-reading ability. To sign up for an audition, visit the auditions webpage and be sure to indicate in the notes section that you are auditioning for a Renaissance Singers Scholarship.
Assistant Conductor Award 2024-25: in addition to the above, we will appoint a suitable member of the choir as assistant-conductor. The appointee will be given podium experience each week, the possibility of directing part of a performance, and weekly mentoring. For further details and to apply, please email Director, Gillian Craig, at gc5@st-andrews.ac.uk.
Scholarship holders are required to:
• sing in weekly rehearsals on Tuesday evenings during semester
• perform in all scheduled concerts and evensong performances in St Salvator's Chapel and in venues around Scotland
• attend occasional tours in the UK and Europe
• take an active part in the running of the choir
• join the Music Centre
The scholarships cover the cost of a full year's singing tuition at the Music Centre or choral directing with the choir.
Auditions
For a place in the choir without a scholarship, please contact the Director, Gillian Craig, at gc5@st-andrews.ac.uk to arrange an audition.
Please note that all members of the choir are required to join the Music Centre.
Rehearsals
Weekly rehearsals take place on Tuesdays from 5.30pm to 7pm in St Salvator's Chapel.
Contact
For more information about joining the St Andrews Renaissance Singers, please email Gillian at gc5@st-andrews.ac.uk.
-
St Leonard’s Chapel Choir sings the Office of Compline once a week in the intimate, candle-lit surroundings of St Leonard's Chapel. The choir is unauditioned, and all University students and staff are welcome to join.
St Leonard's Chapel Choir was founded by the Rev Douglas Gifford, then a professor of Spanish at the University. Today, the choir is directed by the holder of the Douglas Gifford Scholarship, which is awarded on an annual basis.
If you are interested in singing with St Leonard's Chapel Choir, simply come to a rehearsal or contact the Douglas Gifford Scholar for more information by emailing dgscholar@st-andrews.ac.uk.
Scholarships
There are scholarships available for University students in the choir which are auditioned for at the beginning of every academic year.
Rehearsals and services
Rehearsals take place on Thursdays at 8.30pm
Services take place on Thursdays from 10pm to 10.25pm
-
The StAMP (St Andrews Music Participation) Children’s Choir is a fun programme introducing children to the joy of singing in a group with others. Whilst learning a wide range of songs and games, participants will also develop skills that will benefit them in other areas of their lives, including coordination, memory and team building.
Our Children and Young People webpage has details of more activities.
The choir is led by Claire Innes-Hopkins. Concerts will be performed two to three times per year when conditions permit.
The group is currently for primary school pupils from P3 to P7. No previous experience of singing is necessary.
To register an interest and for further information, email music@st-andrews.ac.uk or phone +44 (0)1334 46 2226.
All members of the choir must join the Music Centre. The membership fee covers all costs associated with the choir.
Rehearsals: Tuesdays 5pm to 5.45pm, Laidlaw Music Centre, Queen’s Terrace KY16 9QF
Dates: during Fife Council term time
-
St Andrews Chorus is Scotland's largest choral society and, since 2018, has been affiliated to the University of St Andrews Music Centre. For more information, see the St Andrews Chorus website.
Chorus rehearsals take place every Thursday evening during semester between 7pm and 9.15pm in the McPherson Recital Room in the Laidlaw Music Centre. The Chorus performs two concerts each year with professional soloists and orchestras, one in Holy Trinity Church in St Andrews and one in the Caird Hall, Dundee.
-
The McPherson Singers is a friendly chamber choir intended primarily for staff and postgraduates, though members also include alumni, retired staff and friends of the University. Members should have some prior experience of choral singing and be able to read music.
The choir is directed by Michael Downes, the University’s Director of Music, and meets on Thursdays between 1.05pm and 1.55pm in the Laidlaw Music Centre.
The McPherson Singers generally focus on Romantic and twentieth-century repertoire. Works currently being rehearsed include Britten’s Hymn to St Cecilia, Finzi’s Lo, The Full Final Sacrifice and Elgar’s From the Bavarian Highlands.
For more information please email Michael on mjd14@st-andrews.ac.uk. Members should join the Music Centre.
-
A number of student societies and other independently run choral and vocal groups exist in St Andrews, including:
