Congregation, choir, cantors, and clergy regularly share the responsibility for singing the liturgy, but the balance among these forces is not the same on every occasion. At some services Good Shepherd’s choirs do a good bit of the singing.

Choral Evensong

Evensong (Evening Prayer) is part of the Church’s ancient and ongoing daily round of services of prayer and scripture. Choral Evensong, sung at Good Shepherd at 6:00 pm on the second Sunday of the month, September through May, features music ranging from plainsong to the most elaborate choral music our tradition has to offer, including canticles and anthems by composers such as Gibbons, Howells, Purcell, Stanford, Tallis, Wood, and Vaughan Williams.

Choral Masses

For several Principal Feasts of the church year, especially Christmas, Easter, and All Saints’, the Good Shepherd Choir, usually accompanied by instrumental ensemble, sings a Choral Mass – a group of settings of the great unchanging songs of the Eucharist. These occasions have included plainsong settings as well as those by Duruflé, Fauré, Haßler, Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert.