The choir are supplemented for special occasions, such as the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols, by other friends who love to sing in our splendid church.
KCM is lucky to have three choirs that use it as a home base. Each of these are open to everyone of whatever experience because everyone can sing! Sometimes its just a matter of having a go and building confidence with new friends.
KING CHARLES CHURCH CHOIR
This is the ‘official’ Church Choir, that has sung, Sunday-by-Sunday for generations. Its job is to add to the spirituality of our services by leading the singing of hymns and psalms and by singing special anthems that usually fit to the theme of the service. By a mixture of enthusiasm, experience and hard work, the choir can offer an advanced repertoire that is both challenging but deeply rewarding to sing. Set-piece occasions such as the annual 9 Lessons and Carols service bring hundreds of people in to listen. From the most complex modern work to the simplest piece of Plainchant, the choir exists to enrich worship and to inspire our visitors with music that they might not otherwise often hear. The choir practices in the Choir Vestry on Fridays between 7.15 and 8.45pm.
The King Charles Singers with Falmouth Mayor Alan Rowe and Deputy Mayor (and choir member) Louise Colley at the 2024 Mayor Making Ceremony.
THE KING CHARLES SINGERS
The King Charles Singers, now about 10 years old, is a choir made up of people who like to sing interesting and church-based music, but who don’t find it easy to come to church every Sunday! The Singers meet once a week on Thursday evening in the Choir Vestry between 7 and 8.30pm. Our repertoire includes Church music, like that done by the Church Choir, as well as other genres – madrigals and Gospel songs among them. Sometimes, the Singers join forces with the Church Choir (including for the Nine Lessons and Carols service at Christmas and the Easter Sunday service), but they also sometimes go solo, including a performance at the official swearing in of the town Mayor in May 2024, and performances at the Platinum Jubilee and others.
THE FOLLOWING SEAS
This is the church Shanty group. Now in its third year, it has grown from a group that sang in the Old Church Coffee Shop, which has been renamed as Fairwinds, in honour of that occasion. This is the only church music group that is entry by audition, as it is necessary to be able to read music to sing some of the arrangements of the shanties (that may be in up to eight parts at a time). The Following Seas participate in the International Shanty Festival each year, including playing a role in the Shanty Festival Service that takes place in the Church. The group prides itself on technical rigour when it comes to singing, with a tasteful smidgen of the bawdy humour often inherent to the genre!
The Director of Music
Richard Bailey was born in Liverpool in 1969. On the occasion of his seventh birthday, he was taken to his family church, St Michael’s Garston and pressed into the choir. Since then, he has never not been involved in church music. Shortly, thereafter he began singing in the Anglican Cathedral choir in Liverpool and started learning the piano and organ. Having attended Liverpool and Manchester Universities, he began teaching Music, Religious Studies and Philosophy at various schools, including 15 years in rural West Sussex where he also played in the local village church. Following the momentous and entirely justified decision to go freelance in 2014, he was appointed to the position of Organist and Director of Music at KCM, having never been to Falmouth or even Cornwall before.
As well as his work at the church, he is choirmaster of the Carrick Singers (the local U3A choir) and gives individual organ, piano and singing lessons.
Richard can be contacted on rhb1969.rb@gmail.com and is always willing to provide whatever help and encouragement to local musicians, whether budding or grizzled, that he can.