Salisbury Cathedral Choir returns after Porton Down tests

At 5:30pm today (Friday 4th September) Salisbury Cathedral Choir will do their first bit of singing for six months.

The Lay Vicars at the site will do a Choral Evensong, before full choir services resume from tomorrow (Saturday 5th).

Singing in a group was banned in March due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but Salisbury Cathedral played a huge part in bringing it back in the UK.

Two of their adult singers took part in experiments at Porton Down in July where they were tested when coughing, speaking and singing to see what difference it made to the spreading of germs.

Jonathan Woodhouse and Richard Hooper worked with Public Health England to help get choirs across the country back singing safely.

Jonathan told Greatest Hits Radio:

"I went into a chamber where I had to wear a special outfit and I was asked to do various things such as breathing through my nose, breathing through my mouth, coughing and I also had to speak the words of the carol O come all ye faithful and once I had done that I was asked to sing it as well. This was all done in various stages and organised in 10 minute stages where I was asked to do run throughs, pause and then do it again.

I was very excited about it, leading up to it, and I was just really delighted to be able to contribute and to help so many people around the country, I've been singing for many years so I've got many really good friends who are singers all across the country so it was great to be able to my bit towards it and when it came to the testing I wasn't really sure what to expect but it was really well organised."

Petri dishes, carefully labelled and dispersed throughout the experiment room, were collected at the end of each experiment, and then cultivated to allow bacteria to grow.

SAFE SINGING RETURNS

Whilst certain acts of worship were permitted to resume in July, it has only recently become possible for choirs to take up their duties.

There are going to be some measures and restrictions in place to make sure it is being carried out safely.

These include:

• Rehearsal 'bubbles'

• More space between singers

• More hand sanitsing procedures

• Robes dry cleaned and hung in separate laundry bags

The Cathedral's Director of Music, David Halls, said:

"We are delighted that, after such a prolonged and worrying period of silence, our Cathedral Choir can resume its duties once more. At various points in history the worship of the Church of England has seen dramatic changes, but never in any of our lifetimes has church music experienced such an extended period of interruption. Even during the first and second world wars, choral services would have been kept going in some form."

Salisbury Cathedral Choir consists of sixteen boy choristers and sixteen girl choristers aged between 8 and 13 years, as well as the 'Lay Vicars'.

Advance booking for these services are advised and can be done by visiting www.salisburycathedral.org.uk.

• salisbury
• salisbury cathedral
• porton down
• Choir
• singing
• covid-19