The Church Choir Award

At Cathedral Music Trust, we know the vital role that church choirs play in developing the UK’s outstanding choral and organ music heritage through their music-making and musical training.

Cathedral Music Trust is therefore delighted to be working in partnership with The Royal School of Church Music. We created the Church Choir Award to recognise and develop excellence in choral music-making by church choirs, and to give them the opportunity to innovate and enrich their music-making.

Overview

The Church Choir Award is open to choirs which demonstrate high choral standards and an aspiration to go further but do not usually qualify for the Cathedral Music Support Programme. There is a modest budget available for us to disperse.

Choirs are invited to apply for up to £10,000 for a specific, innovative or enriching project which will develop their work. Award holders will also receive one year's group membership of RSCM and one year's free access to RSCM's Voice for Life digital training programme.

Read on for more information.

Who can apply to the Church Choir Award?

A choir can apply if:

• It is part of a place of Christian worship of a recognised denomination from the UK, a UK Crown Dependency or the Republic of Ireland
• It regularly performs cathedral-style choral repertoire in a liturgical context
• It sings at least one choral service most weeks during term time (e.g., Evensong, Matins and/or Eucharist) and other services throughout the year
• It demonstrates a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion
• It cannot fund the entire project from existing resources
• It did not receive a Church Choir Award in 2023

You can use our eligibility checker to see if you are eligible to apply. Please give an answer to every question. You are welcome to talk to us if you would like to discuss your eligibility for an award.

What can I apply for?

The Church Choir Award is open to choirs which do not usually qualify for our Cathedral Music Support Programme, but which demonstrate high choral standards and an aspiration to go further.

Choirs are invited to apply for funding for a specific, innovative or enriching project which will develop their work.

Examples might be additional training for choristers (e.g., helping them work towards RSCM awards, imaginative recruitment campaigns, projects involving the wider community (such as schools), an expansion of the number of weekly choral services, establishing an additional choir (such as a training choir or youth choir), developing the skills of your music leaders (through a recognised professional-development programme) or providing opportunities and training for young organists.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, and we welcome imaginative ideas. Remember that you need to demonstrate in your application what the impact of your project will be on your choir, congregation and the wider community. We also ask that you explain how you will continue the work of your project once the grant has been spent. This may involve showing that you intend to continue fundraising to maintain the activity and/or demonstrating how the skills and experiences acquired by your project's participants will continue to benefit the choir in the longer term.

How much can I apply for?

You can apply for up to £10,000 of project funding, 20% of which can be for associated capital costs (such as the purchase of music). You will be required to submit an itemised budget showing your proposed income and expenditure and we ask that you apply only for what your project needs rather than simply asking for the maximum amount. We anticipate that most projects we fund will have a duration of one academic year but we are happy to consider two-year projects if you make a strong case for the benefits of this. We expect the majority of applications to be for projects costing between £5,000 and £10,000.

The award will cover up to 90% of the project's expenditure. Applicants are expected to supply the additional 10% (or more) of the project's cost from their own resources or alternative sources of funding. This means that, if the total cost of your project is £5,000, you can apply to us for £4,500 and you will need to find the additional £500 from other sources of income. You should demonstrate in your budget that you either already have the funds in place, or that you have a robust plan to raise the funds (for example, by putting on a concert or organising a sponsored event). We will consider contributing to larger scale projects (i.e. with costs significantly greater than £10,000) if you can demonstrate that a substantial part of the additional funding is already secured.

Recipients of a grant will be awarded one year's free membership of the RSCM and one year's free access to RSCM's new Voice for Life digital training programme. We are keen to support projects that make active use of this valuable resource.

How do I apply?

All applications must be submitted via our online application form.

When you submit your application, you will be asked to include:

• A budget for your project
• A link to a video recording of your choir (ideally via YouTube or Vimeo video)
• Short biographies of the music leaders working on your project
• Your most recent audited accounts

We also request that your application is signed by the Incumbent or Priest-in-Charge.

The deadline is noon on Wednesday 15 May. Applications will not be accepted after this date.

How is my application assessed?

Your application is assessed by a committee made up of representatives of Cathedral Music Trust and the RSCM.

The panel will rank the applications according to their potential for impact. The panel also takes into account the activity's alignment with our mission (transforming lives through cathedral music) and our objectives of excellence, participation and sustainability, as well as the breadth and depth of the anticipated outcomes and impact. 

It should be noted that we expect to receive more applications that rank highly in our assessment than we are able to fund. This means that there are likely to be many good applications that we are unable to support.

Please note that the ranking and deliberation of the committee will not be made public but we do aim to provide feedback to unsuccessful applicants.