About St Peter’s Singers

Founded in 1977 and based at Leeds Minster, St Peter’s Singers of Leeds is one of the leading chamber choirs in the North of England, with a strong track record of innovation and enterprise.

Directed from its inception until 2020 by Dr Simon Lindley, and now by Alex Woodrow, we have established a reputation for compelling and musical interpretations of choral music. We perform music dating from the Renaissance right through to the present day.

In 2014, St Peter’s Singers performed and then recorded a programme of spiritual music in the Victoria Quarter. Surprisingly perhaps, this amazing space in the heart of Leeds’ commercial centre has wonderful acoustics, and our acclaimed CD, One Equal Music exploited them to great effect.

St Peter’s Singers appear regularly in Leeds Leisure Services lunchtime concerts, giving well-received and varied recitals to large audiences. Additionally, we present one of the great works from the Oratorio repertoire each year on Good Friday in Leeds Minster.

In December 2018 we featured with the Orchestra of Opera North in War Horse The Story in Concert.

Collaborations in recent years with Leeds Philharmonic and Leeds Festival Chorus in other Town Hall concerts have also proved popular.

Premieres and commissions

We have a proud record of commissioning new works, including compositions by Michael Hurd, Francis Jackson and Philip Moore.

The Singers are proud to have given the first performances of two new works in 2018:

Tu es Petrus – Philip Moore

Tu es Petrus was commissioned by the choir from Philip Moore to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The work received its first hearing in an enthusiastic and committed performance in Leeds Minster in June 2018. It is undoubtedly a fine work and has become part of our current repertoire.

Penthos – Matthew Oglesby and Hannah Stone

In October 2018, we gave the first performance of Penthos, a highly acclaimed new Requiem created by Hannah Stone and Matthew Oglesby. Hannah is a published poet, while Matthew is a young composer of whom great things can surely be predicted.

Not surprisingly, since Hannah and Matthew are members of St Peter’s Singers, it was a huge honour to stage this wonderful work’s first performance.

They conceived the work with the centenary of the 1918 Armistice in mind, and the concert dovetailed with other events in the city.

We followed the concert with further appearances introducing excerpts of the work to a wider audience, including here at Kirkstall Abbey.

You can listen to excerpts from the concert. Plans to give the work a second performance in 2020 were unfortunately derailed by the pandemic, but we hope to be able to present it again when conditions allow.

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