Choir Pay

[mgp]

I've been DoM of a musically demanding church for almost a year and am far from sure that we pay our youngsters appropriately.

 

Based on two practices & two services per week (with a 50% uplift for full attendance) we have been paying as follows (per attendance):

 

Probationer £0.30 ie up to £1.80/week

Light Blue £0.40 ie up to £2.40

Dark Blue £0.50 ie up to £3.00

Red £0.60 ie up to £4.20

Head Chorister £1.00 ie up to £6.00 (and heaven help them if its less!!)

 

Teenagers £1.00 per time (plus £5 per session doing Medal work with the younger choristers). As we have boys & girls we've tied the rate to the HC rate so there's no difference either way.

 

Weddings at £5 each. (£10 for teeenagers)

 

These rates have been the same for a while and I think they may be rather low - what are you paying?

 

Thanks

 

Martin

[Vox Humana]

The question doesn't arise for me, but the other day I was at a Bristol city centre church which pays each of its trebles £104 a term. I suspect, however, that the church is unusually well off. At any rate, it certainly was a quarter of a century ago, when its assets were netting it an annual income in six figures. The church does fully choral, BCP services (though possibly with chanted canticles in the evening).

[Guest drd]

We're not paying at present (though it is also a musically demanding place), and I have it on the my agenda for the next staff meeting.

 

This debate is therefore of great interest to me.

[passion_chorale]

The question doesn't arise for me, but the other day I was at a Bristol city centre church which pays each of its trebles £104 a term. I suspect, however, that the church is unusually well off. At any rate, it certainly was a quarter of a century ago, when its assets were netting it an annual income in six figures. The church does fully choral, BCP services (though possibly with chanted canticles in the evening).

 

I sing there as a Bass!

[Vox Humana]

I sing there as a Bass!

[awkirk]

The question doesn't arise for me, but the other day I was at a Bristol city centre church which pays each of its trebles £104 a term. I suspect, however, that the church is unusually well off. At any rate, it certainly was a quarter of a century ago, when its assets were netting it an annual income in six figures. The church does fully choral, BCP services (though possibly with chanted canticles in the evening).

I can assure readers that this Bristol Church is NOT St Mary Redcliffe Church (which has a reputation for being fairly wealthy too) but is the only other city centre church to have a boys/men choir (not counting Bristol Cathedral). I believe there are only a small number of boys at this other church. At Redcliffe the boys (we have 21 on the books at present) get termly pay of between £8 - £30 per term (3 times a year) depending on rankk. For weddings the boys only choir gets £123 and full choir (men and boys) £276 - this equates to £7-£12 per boys/wedding depending on rank and usually £20 per man (including teenagers). We have a separate girls choir too but they are not yet singing many weddings as their duties are much lighter.

 

Hope that helps!