Our Beginnings

The Choir School at St. Peter’s can trace its history back more than a century to the first Boys Choir at the church, established in 1894. From that beginning, with a nucleus of four choristers the choir program today numbers almost 90 children between the ages of 6 and 18 in five choirs.

From 1929 through the 1940’s, the Boys Choir flourished under the direction of choirmaster William Wall Whiddit, becoming an ecumenical group, drawing boys from throughout the city. The boys rode the trolley into St. Peter’s for rehearsal and even received a stipend of 50 cents per month for performing their choir duties! The choirs from this time can count among their alumni several noted figures. While a highly respected performing ensemble in the Charlotte community, the St. Peter’s Boys Choir disbanded during the mid-1940’s with the social changes brought on by the war.

The first Girls Choir at St. Peter’s began in 1924 as a parish choir directed by Mrs. Floyd Rogers, singing monthly Evensong services. The girls received wonderful musical training and developed strong friendships that lasted a lifetime. Alumnae of this choir continue to worship at St. Peter’s and support today’s Girls Choir in their musical pursuits.

After nearly 50 years with no children’s choirs at St. Peter’s, Ben Outen, Organist and Choirmaster at St. Peter’s reestablished the boy choir tradition in 1993. Using organizational elements of both the 1930’s choir and of today’s local civic choirs, the current choir blends the ancient, proven boy choir tradition of teaching music through classical, sacred worship forms with performance of additional styles of music, such as folk and popular songs. Since 1993, choristers have come from throughout the metropolitan Charlotte area including the outlying cities of Mooresville and Salisbury, NC and Rock Hill, SC.

In 1998, the Girls Choir was reestablished, modeling it after the highly successful Boys Choir. Beginning with a group of nine girls, the choristers spent the year training and performing to become the core of the choir in 1999. The next additions to the program were the Town Choirs in the fall of 2001. They began under the direction of Carol Lillard, offering musical training to prepare boys and girls for the touring choirs without the pressures of a performance schedule. As we graduate more and more children into the Touring Choirs from the Town Choirs, we see the successes of early, quality music education.

Finally, in response to many requests from our graduates, now in their teenage years, we began The MasterSingers at St. Peter’s, a mixed voice teen choir, in the fall of 2003. It was a joy to work with our trained singers in this new setting, and they joined us on our June 2004 tour. In the summer of 2007, this advanced choir traveled to England, singing Evensong and performing concerts at various cathedrals. This trip was so successful that we plan to travel to England with this choir every four years. In 2011, we will lead services in Wells Cathedral for a week in July!

Every year we see more of our alumni returning to tell of their success stories, both musically and academically. This past year’s choir graduates are now students at University of South Carolina, College of Charleston, Appalachian State University, Texas A&M, UNC Charlotte and Notre Dame. Through the years our alumni have attended Manhattan School of Music, Indiana University, Shenandoah Conservatory, Furman, Northwestern, Westminster Choir College and many of the schools in the UNC system. Their honors and scholarships received are outstanding and we are proud to have contributed to their foundation. We look forward to many more years of building musical foundations for Charlotte area children.