Organist and Director of Music: Alexander Woodrow
Assistant Organist: Shaun Turnbull
Leeds Minster Choir is a talented and dedicated chamber ensemble, singing three choral services a week (Thursday Evensongs and a Choral Eucharist and Choral Evensong each Sunday), with a wide-ranging and ambitious repertoire. A number of Choral Scholarships are generously supported by the Edith Lill bequest, Cathedral Music Trust, and the Pilling Trust Fund, and the scholars (students at Leeds and York Universities, and Leeds Conservatoire) sing alongside a committed and experienced team of volunteer singers drawn from the locality.
The Minster Choir featured on the 2022 BBC1 Easter Day live broadcast. In 2025, the Choir released, in conjunction with The St Peter’s Singers of Leeds, a commercial recording on the Priory Records label of sacred choral and organ music by William Lloyd Webber. In recent years, the Minster Choir has undertaken a summer cathedral residency (Carlisle 2023; Lichfield 2024; St Albans 2025), and the choir often sings services at churches closer to home in Leeds as part of our musical ministry and outreach.
Our Director of Music, Alexander Woodrow, is keen to hear from able musicians who might be interested in a regular commitment, or in joining our list of deputy singers. The choir enjoys high musical standards with professional direction and accomapniment, a wide and stimulating repertoire, a strong sense of community and teamwork, and it is free to join. Find out more about joining the choir…
We also offer remunerated choral scholarships to full-time university students. The application window for scholarships opens again in June 2026 for the 2026-2027 academic year. Please see our scholarships page for further information.
Established in March 2025, the Children’s Choir at the Minster consists of boys and girls aged between 8 and 11, all of whom attend St Peter’s C of E Primary School, our church school around half a mile away from the Minster. The children rehearse weekly during term time at Leeds Minster, and contribute once a month to the Sunday Choral Eucharist, helping to lead the hymns on behalf of the congregation as well as learning a variety of seasonally appropriate anthems in their own right. They are also instructed in the rudiments of musical theory as well as how to use the voice well. They are trained by the Organist and Director of Music, Alexander Woodrow, with the assistance of two chaperones who provide excellent support and pastoral care. Although embryonic, the Children’s Choir has made a warmly appreciated contribution already to our worship and musical life at Leeds Minster.
Leeds Minster has a long and glorious choral history, counting such famous figures as Samuel Sebastian Wesley and Edward Bairstow among its former Organists. The choir continues to play an integral part in our weekly programme of Services.
The Choir of Leeds Parish Church, as it then was, can be dated back to the early years of the 19th century when a choir was formed for the previous medieval buildingby Revd Richard Fawcett. When Dr Walter Hook, (Vicar 1837-59) rebuilt the church in 1841 he placed the choir in the chancel, making it one of the earliest choirs to sing in an Anglican chancel since the Reformation.
For many years, under the leadership of many notable and distinguished musicians, Leeds was the only parish church choir in the country singing daily choral services, and the choir held its place within the “cathedral” tradition of the nation. However, it had become clear by the last years of the twentieth century that this was no longer tenable, and in the autumn of 2015 the decision was taken to stand down the historic boys’ and girls’ choirs.
The current musical foundation, with its vibrant and skilled adult chamber choir and the developing opportunities for children to sing, maintains this wonderful heritage, and we are very grateful indeed to the children and adults who offer their time and skill in music-making here, enhancing our worship, lifting the spirits, and creating something of spiritual and artistic worth and beauty in the heart of our city.
